Only Pieces of Wood
by LolaB
Summary: My first Rentfic. An alternative to Roger's return from Santa Fe. ***12/08/02*** COMPLETED.
1.

Only Pieces of Wood  
  
  
  
Author's Notes:  
  
04-23-02. This is my first Rentfic. I've been reading them for awhile now but was reluctant to attempt my own. Most of you are very talented and I figured I'd probably suck. ;) I wrote this in a dream last night, and had to write it up immediately or I would forget it. Personally, I prefer dreams involving Adam Pascal in a white tank top, playing his guitar for me. (Yes, I've really dreamt that! Aren't I lucky?! :P) But this certainly provided inspiration, for which I'm thankful. This follows the established story of Rent, until Roger returns from Santa Fe, which is where this begins. After that, as you will see, I take liberties and change everything. ;)  
  
As this is my first, feedback is greatly appreciated. (Ack, I'm already becoming one of those desperate review-aholics that I can't help but adore so much! :)  
  
Disclaimer: (Is this truly necessary, by the way? LOL.) These characters are the work of Jonathan Larson. They are not mine. If you sue me, you'll have to sue dozens of other Rentfic writers too, so it's not worth it. :P  
  
And just so you know... I am a very big fan of misery and angst. ;) Enjoy.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The guitar he could not find a purpose for  
  
'Only pieces of wood,' he muttered  
  
Break it up and float it to a distant shore  
  
To pursue his own good  
  
--Daphne Rubin-Vega; "90 Miles"  
  
  
  
1.  
  
  
  
The sun shone off the back of my guitar as its end stuck up in the back seat, continually blocking my rear view. It didn't matter, though. It wouldn't have mattered if it blocked every single window and I ended up crashing the car and reducing my number of possessions from two to one. As long as I had my guitar. And this time I wouldn't let it go.  
  
My song had come to me after I'd sold it. I had nothing to play it on, nothing to sound it out on... nothing except in my own head. I could hear it on my guitar, even with that one twangy, rebellious string that was forever off-key. Every night, it played over and over in my head, and I was furious I didn't even have a photo of her with me. In movies, the guy who loses his love to the curse of distance always has a photo.  
  
But I soon realized, or resigned myself to the fact, that I didn't need a picture. I could close my eyes and shut out the rest of the world and there she was. Those shimmering chocolate-colored eyes, the ever-present glitter-- moonlight, I called it--in her hair... and on our clothes, and in the bed, and everywhere else. That precious dimpled smile that stole my heart away the first time she flashed it at me...  
  
It was ironic, really. Well, maybe not so much ironic as simply stupid on my part. She was my inspiration. My song. And my guitar was the median between us. Even in times without her, after a fight, or when she was working and I would simply sit on the floor in her apartment and take in the fresh scent of shampoo from the bathroom. I would sit and play my guitar, then, and feel as close to her as I ever had.  
  
Then I sold the guitar, and I left her. Redundant, really. I could have done either one of those things, and the pain of both would have ensued.  
  
I couldn't forget the afternoon I walked into the pawn shop, clutching my guitar protectively, wondering how I was supposed to let it go. But when I left the shop and saw that wad of money clenched in my fist, like a foreign object... I convinced myself it didn't matter. It was only a guitar, after all. Only pieces of wood.  
  
That would be my life. A metaphorical guitar. Here one day, gone the next. Shattered into a thousand pieces with a few select words and decisions. That's all anyone's life is, really. A few choices that can make you or break you.  
  
And then there was him.  
  
His words echoed in my head on my entire drive to Santa Fe. Not even echoed. Not like the obnoxious, over-dramatic reverb Maureen was so fond of. It was a scream, and at the same time a soft, beseeching plea. I couldn't pass an intersection or swerve onto an exit without hearing it. *For somebody who's always been let down,* he told me.  
  
I should have told him the truth then. I shouldn't have let him get away with that statement. It wasn't entirely accurate, after all. *He* had never let me down. Not once.  
  
I'd left him too.  
  
It was the first thing I noticed away from home. How astonishingly bored I would get without him to talk to. No one to yell at for acting like my mother, or for shoving a camera in my face all the time. No one to eat Captain Crunch with in the mornings, even if we had no milk to go along with it. And--a lump formed in my throat, and stayed there--no calls to screen.  
  
When I found myself with some loose change, which was not very often, I would call our loft. It was one of the first and last times I ever laughed while I was in Santa Fe--the first time I tried to call home, and realized I'd forgotten our phone number. Who ever calls themself?! I demanded, assuming that would excuse my stupidity, trying not to laugh at myself as I paged through a phone book, an hour later, of the greater New York area, which, in Santa Fe is not the easiest thing to find.  
  
So I called the number. For some reason, it surprised me that it was really ours. You don't usually page through a phone book and locate a number, only to hear your own voice on the answering machine. I heard us unenthusiastically recite, "SPEEEEEAK." I heard the beep. I hung up.  
  
I hung up the next time, too.  
  
I never once left a message. Not on our machine, or Mimi's, or anyone else's.  
  
It didn't matter now, I told myself firmly as I felt my heartbeat beginning to rise. This was *us*, after all. Our gang. Our family. Six months without speaking wasn't going to change things as much as I was afraid it would. Of course, there was always the sickening fear in the back of my mind that... no.  
  
No.  
  
She was fine. Collins was fine. They were alive when I left, and they would be alive now. And I fixated on this belief, clung to it with my life, because I knew that's what I would lose if the belief weren't true.  
  
This family wouldn't die. This time I wouldn't let it.  
  
The streets of Manhattan were sunny and bustling and unusually welcoming. It didn't feel half as strange as I feared it would. But that was me, always expecting the worst. And usually with good reason. It didn't matter that we didn't have any heat or electricity. I didn't even care if all the glass in the windows was gone, or if there weren't any windows at all. I was less than three miles from home.  
  
I didn't have the sensation I longed for, of "pulling onto a familiar street". After all, I'd never driven this car around town, or driven much anywhere, for that matter, and this wasn't usually the direction I came home, and... well, I never much left the house anyway.  
  
But that, like so many other things, didn't matter. I slid the car into a parked position, and stepped out. I probably spent two full minutes simply staring up at the building. I don't know what I was expecting. Someone to pop their head out the window and invite me up, so I wouldn't have to do it myself?  
  
I eyed the payphone twenty feet away. I should call first.  
  
No. I couldn't.  
  
The first flight of stairs led to a landing, giving me only enough time to decide which apartment I should go to first. Hers was closer, but the loft was my home.  
  
I stepped onto her welcome mat, then stepped away. I could already smell her shampoo and laundry detergent and the faint aroma of nail polish and...  
  
Oh, God. I was really back. She was here. She was only a door away from me.  
  
I knocked.  
  
The door swung open slowly, groggily, much resembling the person who stood behind it--hair sticking up every which way, wearing nothing but a faded pair of blue jeans that were too big for him, and rubbing his eyes.  
  
"Mark..." 


	2. 

A/N: 4-26-02—Well, I'm continuing because I've been asked to, so thank you. Thank you, Dulcey, for your wonderful plot organizing skills. I'd be lost without your brilliance.  
  
A box of Captain Crunch for whoever can identify the line I shamelessly stole from Aida. ;)  
  
Fifty percent of authors prefer chocolate to feedback. I, however, can't eat sugar. :)  
  
Disclaimer: Since this is chapter 2, all these characters now belong to me. Just kidding. (I always wanted to do that. :P)  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
  
  
2.  
  
  
  
He barely had time for the customary eye widening and jaw dropping, before a blur of white cloth—later identified as a t-shirt—soared through the air from the direction of the bedroom, and landed on his head.  
  
"Have some decency when you answer the door, Mark Cohen," a voice teased, out of nowhere, unaccompanied by the usual head and body. I assumed it came from the same place as the t-shirt.  
  
I had to force away a grin at how he looked so entirely shocked and ridiculous, concurrently. It would have been inappropriate for me to laugh at this point, but it was difficult to resist. His hands fumbled with the t- shirt until it slid over his head, and our gazes were once again locked.  
  
"Just a sec," his voice squeaked, obviously directed towards her, although his eyes never left mine. He followed me out the front door and closed it behind us.  
  
"What are you doing here?" I found myself asking, and the words weren't even out of my mouth before I realized how ludicrous that sounded.  
  
Mark obviously noticed too, and broke into a half-smile, half-laugh of someone obviously still in shock, but doing their best to get over it, and looking rather dorky in the process. "What am *I* doing here?"  
  
I smiled back. "I mean... hi."  
  
The shock was gone. That half-smile I remembered so well was back. It lacked the sparkle and vivacity I remembered, but that didn't matter at this point. It would come back. It always did. "Hi," he echoed quietly, adjusting his glasses, which had been rearranged by the aforementioned flying t-shirt.  
  
Well then, I mused aimlessly, stuffing my hands into my pockets and nodding slowly to myself as I focused my gaze on the welcome mat I'd been standing on only seconds ago. I vainly wished I were back behind that door, before the flying t-shirt, before that voice from the bedroom, before the awkwardness...  
  
It seemed I didn't even have time to react as he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me. I wasn't sure why I hadn't expected this. Probably because I didn't get hugged very much. Certainly not in the last six months, in a city full of people I didn't know. And certainly not by him. He always let Maureen hug him—hell, he'd let her dress him up in teddy if it suited her fancy. That girl played him like a puppet, and I knew he would always love her more than anyone else realized.  
  
But whenever he could manage, he shied away from physical contact... which is easy to excuse when you've got a camera in your hand all the time; the perfectly ideal barrier between you and the rest of the world. Speaking of which, I began to wonder where that camera was.  
  
Then again, I was certainly one to talk. When I came out of withdrawal, I didn't so much as let him in the same room with me for days.  
  
I tugged my hands out of my pockets and hugged him back. He didn't hate me. I was home, and he was glad. That was all I needed to know.  
  
He pulled away, eyes darting around. Probably looking for his camera. I'm sure he would have wanted to document my return on video. Although maybe that was me being a little too egocentric.  
  
"So," he said simply, making the word into a statement of its own and tossing the ball back to my court.  
  
"Um, how... I mean, are you—is she—how is—"  
  
This was going well.  
  
He nodded. I'm not sure what that was supposed to answer. "We're fine," he finally announced. "Um, everyone's good. Mimi's just been a little..."  
  
"What?" I demanded, suddenly engrossed as the conversation turned away from small talk with that one simple, unfinished sentence.  
  
He looked at me strangely, appraisingly, almost as if he were trying to decide if he should tell me the truth. "Um, she was working too many hours. I made her cut back. That's why I'm here, I'm..." He fumbled for words again. "I've kind of been taking care of her."  
  
I knew there was something he wasn't telling me—like maybe, how she could survive without the money from the club?—but I wasn't about to ruin this moment. I would find out when I saw her. She'd probably done something crazy like caught a cold, and it had mutated into something worse, and Mark didn't want me worrying.  
  
That was Mark—always making sure everyone else was okay, while in truth he suffered more than any of us.  
  
"Thank you," I told him. I'd never meant it more.  
  
He looked up again. "Have you been taking your AZT?"  
  
This time I laughed, and it couldn't have felt more appropriate. "God, I've missed you." He smiled and stared at the floor. "Can I see her?" I asked softly.  
  
A nod... almost. More of an uncertain head gesture, really. "Um—of course. Yeah. Hang on, okay?"  
  
I nodded, but he didn't notice. He had already disappeared down the hall. I thought maybe I should go get my guitar out of the back seat while I was waiting. I couldn't wait for her to hear my song. Countless times, I had imagined playing it for her. We would sit all alone in her room, and she'd plop down on the bed, flip her hair over her shoulder like she always did, and smile at me. I'd smile back from my spot on the floor, and pluck out the first few notes.  
  
In every fantasy, by the end of the song, she had tears in her eyes.  
  
Or maybe I did. I can't remember now.  
  
I missed her so much.  
  
My thoughts returned to the present, which now included a small figure standing in the doorway. As small as I remembered, and as precious. She hadn't changed as I thought she would. She didn't look deathly sick or weak or pale or even tired. She looked positively beautiful. How anyone could look so beautiful in cut-off jean shorts and my old blue sweater was beyond me.  
  
By the look on her face, I knew Mark had already told her I was here. I would have rather we simultaneously experienced the butterflies in our stomachs, but it was obvious she'd already been through her own shock back in her room. It didn't matter now. Maybe it was better this way. At least I knew she'd wanted to see me.  
  
After several seconds of uncompromising stares, we realized this was getting us nowhere. That realization, however, *was* simultaneous—and without one more moment to waste, we were in each other's arms, and she was crying against my chest. Silent tears, the ones that sneak up on you, unbidden, only detectable when you see the proof—a big wet splotch on your pillowcase or shirtsleeve, or in this case, sweater.  
  
And she felt very real. More real than I remembered. Before, she'd always felt like a dream. Too good to be true. But now she was real, and I had never loved her more than I did now.  
  
We pulled away from our embrace at the mutual suspicion that we were being watched. Mark stood some feet away, staring nervously, a sweatshirt draped over one arm.  
  
He flashed a brief, forced smile. "I'm going to go work upstairs for a bit," he informed us, starting towards the door.  
  
Mimi caught his arm. "Mark, it's all right, you can stay," she assured him.  
  
"Yeah, stay!" I encouraged, another sudden wave of joy flooding over me, in the realization that we were all finally under one roof again. "We might need someone to toss t-shirts at," I joked.  
  
He smiled and lifted Mimi's hand off his arm, holding it momentarily before placing it down at her side. "I'll be upstairs," he stated simply. Their eyes locked for a split second, and then he was gone.  
  
Mimi's gaze rested on the closed door, and I became very aware of how silent everything was. I took a step towards her... and another... reached out, and enclosed her hand in mine. She turned around, almost as though she'd forgotten I was there, and smiled.  
  
"Can we talk?" I asked softly.  
  
She nodded, leading me by the hand back to her room... a very familiar gesture, but one with such different connotations now. Although the entire trek took about four steps, in that time, my eyes fell upon various clues in the room that blatantly implied another person's regular presence. Articles of clothing I knew weren't hers were bunched into piles on the floor; a few reels of film were scattered here and there.  
  
"Is he, uh, living here?" I asked.  
  
We reached her room, and she began stuffing into the closet the items that contributed most noticeably to the mess. "We've kind of been... sharing the apartments. It was pretty lonely around here for awhile."  
  
I didn't know how to respond to that, so I said nothing. She shoved a couple of sweatshirts to the side and sat down—one leg tucked underneath her like a cat; the other one dangling off the side of the bed—and folded her hands in her lap. She seemed quieter than I remembered... that much was obvious. Then again, I couldn't expect much from her at this point, verbally. She hadn't seen me in six months. For all I knew, she'd thought I was dead.  
  
I settled down across from her and picked at a loose string on the worn bedspread. "I'm sorry," I blurted.  
  
"For what?"  
  
That girl and her antics. She knew damn well what for. She just wanted me to say it. She knew I was rotten at apologizing. "For—for leaving," I stammered. "For everything I've said... and for anything I forgot to say, too."  
  
She looked at me, puzzled, her voice gentle and unusually subdued. "What did you forget to say?"  
  
My breath caught in my throat. "I love you," I squeaked.  
  
I was surprised at how natural it felt to say that, and relieved at how much I truly meant it. Her eyes filled with tears the second the words left my lips, and she turned away.  
  
I scrambled over to her side of the bed and took her hands in mine. "I know I don't deserve you," I whispered. "And if you never want to see me again, I understand. If you don't even know what you want—that's fine. But I love you."  
  
Tears fell down her face now, unabashed and heartbreaking. "You can't just come back here and—"  
  
"I know," I assured her, having expected those very words for as long as I could remember. "I know, baby. I don't expect anything."  
  
She pulled her hands away from mine, reaching for one of the previously abandoned sweatshirts, and swiped it across her face, smearing the tears and her makeup in the process. For several minutes nothing was said, until she turned to face me again. "I have to get ready for work."  
  
I put on my best sad puppy dog look, and stared down at the floor.  
  
She lifted her hand and placed it against my cheek. It was warm and soft and smelled like that rose garden soap I loved so much. "Go see Mark," she told me. "He's missed you so much."  
  
I knew I was taking a liberty, but I leaned forward and lightly brushed my lips against hers. It was certainly one worth taking, I found out—for the first time in six months, I saw that smile again. I could have died of a heart attack right then and I wouldn't have minded. That smile was enough to sustain me for the rest of my life.  
  
"Go," she repeated, slightly more good-naturedly, before catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror. "Look what you made me do, now I have to redo my makeup."  
  
When she looked over at me, pouting childishly, I was smiling. It was obvious she was trying to convince me she was more okay than she really was, but that was enough for now. I stepped over a shoe on the floor and started down the hallway.  
  
"Hey," she called after me, taking a few quick steps in my direction, as though I would disappear forever once I stepped onto the other side of that door—for that reaction, I certainly couldn't blame her. "I love you too," she whispered.  
  
I winked at her before shutting the door behind me.  
  
Without hesitation, I ran down to the car and dragged my guitar up the three flights of stairs. For the entire drive home, all I could think of was seeing her again and getting to play my song for her. But I should have realized I was being completely unrealistic. I couldn't just pick up where we had left off. Not even close, as it turned out.  
  
But at this moment, I couldn't be happier. Those words were going to echo in my head forever—in the best possible way. 'I love you too.'  
  
As I stepped inside the loft, old memories flooding my senses, I was reminded of how destitute we really were—the apartment was next to empty, and I realized it was because all his stuff was down at Mimi's. 'All' was a bit of a joke, though—some clothes and films and shampoo.  
  
The first hugely noticeable difference was sitting against a wall in what I guess would be classified as our living room. (To me it doesn't seem impressive enough to live up to that title—it's really just a room that happens to be bigger than the others.) It was a TV set, complete with a VCR and about a dozen blank videotapes lying around it—well, they had been blank at one time, I assumed; knowing Mark, they were all filled up by now with pointless footage of their daily lives. How I'd missed that.  
  
Mark was sitting on the floor in front of the TV, pretending to be writing something. I knew he wasn't really doing anything at all because the only thing within five feet of him and the paper was an eraser.  
  
I set my guitar case down on the floor. "We have a TV?!" Yes, that was me—Captain Obvious.  
  
Mark looked up from his notes. "Maureen and Joanne gave it to Mimi for her birthday. She doesn't have a cable hookup downstairs, so that's why it's—" He stopped, his eyes having drifted to my guitar case. "How did you..."  
  
"Long story," I grinned. "But..." I looked around the room, studied the floor for a bit... before turning back to him. "I found my song."  
  
He nodded slowly, as though he had expected as much. "Good," he said quietly. "Can I hear it?"  
  
"Um, I guess," I shrugged modestly, not having accounted for the possibility that Mimi wasn't the only one who'd want to hear something I'd spent a year searching for. "Later. Where's your camera?"  
  
"I left it at work last night, a friend of mine was going to replace one of the parts in it."  
  
I started to nod—after all, he'd said this as if it were the most normal thing in the world—but quickly did a double take. "Work??" I laughed, plopping down on the floor beside him. "That's a good one."  
  
He laughed too, though far less enthusiastically. "Collins had an old colleague at NYU who was looking for someone to edit some films that her students were working on. So..." He shrugged. "Now I'm working."  
  
"Mark, that's awesome!" I slapped him on the back. "But hey—'she'?? Your boss is a woman?" I grinned mischievously.  
  
He chuckled. "Yeah, Roge, lots of people are."  
  
"Smartass." I tossed a throw pillow at him—one of the more peculiar items in our humble abode. Our couch wasn't exactly "throw pillow" material. It seemed more beanbag-appropriate. I pulled myself to my feet and wandered over towards the kitchen. "So... is she hot?"  
  
"She's all right."  
  
"Uh-huh," I replied, smiling to myself. "Are you two...?"  
  
He looked up at me innocently, completely clueless. It was a full five seconds before he caught on. "What? Oh—no! No."  
  
"It's okay, Marky," I cooed sweetly. "We're allowed to see other people."  
  
He did his best to keep from laughing. "Shut up."  
  
It was just like old times.  
  
Except I knew that it wasn't.  
  
I opened the refrigerator door, then closed it. "Um..." I waited until I got his attention. "Is it okay if I...?"  
  
Pause. Wait to see if I'll have to finish that sentence.  
  
...I guess I will.  
  
"I mean, do you mind if I, y'know, eat something?"  
  
Another pause. "Roger, this is your home."  
  
"Um. Yeah." I turned back to the fridge and grabbed a block of cheese, breaking off a giant piece. "Thanks."  
  
"Where's Mimi?" he asked, having abandoned his paper and eraser to join me for a snack.  
  
This proved very helpful, actually, considering I'd forgotten where we kept silverware. Mark's hand dashed into a drawer, pulled out a plastic butter knife (that's right, I remembered—we didn't actually have "silver"ware), and attempted to neatly slice of a piece of cheese for himself. I had to force myself not to snicker at his futile efforts, as the knife continued to bend rather than cut, and finally broke off in the cheese.  
  
I let out a snort of laughter.  
  
Turning back to my own cheese, I took another bite. "Uh... she said she had to get ready for work."  
  
Mark released the knife half that boasted a block of cheese on the end, and dropped it on the counter as he turned to face me, suddenly interested. "I thought she didn't have to work until tomorrow."  
  
I shrugged, unable to speak with all that cheese in my mouth. I did have an excuse, you know—I hadn't eaten anything since the day before.  
  
Mark was now plowing through the cheese with a plastic spoon, trying to dig out the other half of the knife. "So," he began—trying, but pitifully so, to sound as casual as possible. "Did you guys... talk about anything?"  
  
"I guess."  
  
"You guess?"  
  
I turned away and smiled. He was just as nosy as ever. "Yeah, we did," I finally said. "I'm not sure what's going to happen right now."  
  
This seemed almost disturbing to him, or perhaps he had just become too intently involved with his cheese. "Hey," he looked up at me suddenly. "I'm going to call everyone and tell them you're home, okay?"  
  
Imagining the vast possibilities of Maureen's reaction, I smiled. "Okay."  
  
  
  
  
  
[A/N: I *am* going somewhere with this—somewhere rather significant—hopefully in the next chapter, so bear with me. :)] 


	3. 

A/N: 04-30-02—In response to the reviews, which are so very much appreciated, by the way:  
  
*hands out boxes of Captain Crunch to everyone who guessed* Incidentally, erato227—if you want milk to go along with yours, you'll have to update "Asleep Inside You". To think you have the audacity to lament the current lack of Rentfic. :P Go! Write! NOW!  
  
LimeLightGoddess—Totally agree about Kevin. YUM!!!! Email me and we'll discuss him. :)  
  
Incidentally, everyone, just thought I'd share—this site has some awesome clips and bloopers; my friend and I laughed very hard: http://members.tripod.com/punky_7/  
  
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. I keep asking J.L. if he'll sell them to me—maybe even just Marky—but he says the rest of the community would miss them too much. ;)  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
  
  
3.  
  
  
  
It was evident from Mark's conversation with Maureen, or at least the part I could hear, that nothing had changed between them in the last six months, except for the better.  
  
"Maureen, it's me. No. I don't know. No, she didn't call to complain about you. Yes, Maureen... yes, Maureen."  
  
He paused long enough for emphasis, rolling his eyes at me in hopes of gaining some sympathy. I simply shrugged impishly, raising my eyebrows as if to say, "That's Maureen," and finished off my cheese.  
  
"Yes," he went on, shamelessly monotonous. "Joanne is evil and you should leave her immediately." A puckish, knowing grin in my direction. "I'm kidding. Hey, guess what. Roger's here." He held the phone at arm's length as she squealed in shock, then gingerly brought it back to his ear. "Why don't you both come later tonight? I'm going to call Collins, and then we can all—" His thoughts were put on hold, and finally abandoned, as she chattered away on the other line. "Uh-huh. Okay then."  
  
Very relieved to rid his hand of the receiver, he dropped it onto the hook as though it were a time bomb, and turned back to me. "She's coming over right now."  
  
I nodded, a grin forcing its way across my lips. I should have expected as much.  
  
As the minutes ticked by, Mark, I noticed, was growing unusually fidgety. He would hide his hands in his pockets, then remove them and examine his knuckles, then flop them down at his side. It was almost as if he had two extra arms that he had no idea what to do with. He was much easier to observe, I realized, when he wasn't pointing a camera at you.  
  
He seemed incomplete without it, almost defenseless. And without it as his preoccupation, he was quick to notice I was staring. "What?"  
  
"Wish you could capture it on film?" I offered.  
  
He nodded with a small smile, embarrassed but relieved to admit it.  
  
Maureen's presence was detected far ahead of the time she actually set foot in the building. I could hear her scrambling outside towards our door and bounding up the stairs. Mark had discreetly stepped over to the door and unlocked it some minutes earlier, so when she came flying through the door, we wouldn't end up with a giant hole in the wall.  
  
She burst in as expected, and stood there awkwardly, planted firmly in one spot as if to say, "Which way to the stage?" I almost had to laugh.  
  
"What the hell..." I half-chuckled, half-gasped. Her usually blonde curls now appeared to be the result of a... shall we say, experimental dye job. Not quite red, not quite purple...a hint of blue, even? Couldn't have been more cheesy, at any rate, but I thought it was kind of sexy. Not that I would ever tell her that.  
  
That unforgettable, possessive, strong-willed smile spread until she glowed, lighting up the rest of the room along with her, but there was little time to appreciate it as she bounded across the room and threw herself into my arms, nearly knocking me over backwards.  
  
I returned her over-enthused embrace as best I could on such short notice, spun her around and set her down, holding her at arm's length to fully appreciate this new hair (a bold move on her part—didn't I make enough fun of her already?), and every other essence that was pure and utter Maureen- ness. She couldn't stop smiling. That was fine with me.  
  
Sometimes I envy Joanne.  
  
...I didn't say that out loud, did I? No. Good.  
  
Her smile was contagious, but I barely had time to return it before she started. Started *what* exactly is irrelevant—just... started. You know what I'm talking about.  
  
"MARK!" she screeched, spinning around to face him. "How long has he been here? Why didn't you tell me sooner?"  
  
Mark opened his mouth to say something, then, defeated, glanced at me and shrugged helplessly. "I just got here," I told her. "Nice hair."  
  
"I know," she grinned, fluffing a few curls with her fingertips. "Joanne hates it."  
  
"Ohhh, here it comes," Mark mumbled under his breath, pretending to collapse against the wall.  
  
Maureen chose to see this not an insult, but rather an invitation to continue. "I just don't see why she has to be so—"  
  
"I'm going to give Collins a call," Mark announced, diving for the phone and leaving me to deal with Joanne-related complaints. "He'd hate to miss this."  
  
I listened patiently for several minutes as she scanned the events of her life in the past six months—since, of course, that's just what I'd been dying to hear ever since I came home... (he said with sarcasm dripping from his lips.) About the audition she had for Cabaret, and how her callback was tomorrow, and how Mimi had invited her to the club one night, and they ended up making five hundred dollars in tips. I did not want to know how, and thankfully, she didn't tell me.  
  
She concluded just as she'd started, with a flourish about Joanne's latest pet peeve: untraditional hair colors.  
  
"Anyhow," she sighed, patting my arm. "Tell me where the hell you've been all this time."  
  
"Well..." I shrugged. "Santa Fe, mostly."  
  
"Come on," she whined. "Details. I think we—" She stopped, mid-sentence... very unlike her to fall silent so willingly.  
  
A wave of sudden realization spread across her face and she turned around to Mark, who appeared to be making dinner. I couldn't tell exactly, since I wasn't used to seeing him make much of anything. Our dinners had never been anything that required 'making'  
  
"Mark..." she prompted.  
  
He glanced up innocently from his bowl. "What?"  
  
"Where's Mimi?" It wasn't the casual question it should have been, but obviously seemed to carry a much deeper inquiry.  
  
"At work," he answered in an identical tone, staring at her unwaveringly, making it clear that this was the end of the discussion. Apparently I had missed something.  
  
"Don't tell me you and Mimi are fighting now too," I teased.  
  
She turned back to me, almost surprised that I was still there, and gave what felt like a forced smile. Maureen never gave forced smiles. If she was happy, everyone knew it. If she wasn't... everyone knew it then, too.  
  
"No," she answered slowly. "Of course not."  
  
A few silent moments passed before she continued firing questions about Santa Fe, but it was obvious that a tiny bit of her vivacity had diminished. From the kitchen, Mark occasionally looked up from whatever he was doing, pretending to be busy, but I knew he was more than eager to hear everything that had gone on for the past six months. I was obviously disappointing him, however, managing to answer only the questions Maureen was most insistent on, such as where I'd stayed and how many women I'd hooked up with.  
  
It was good to be home.  
  
~ ~ ~  
  
"Galimatias?!" Maureen squealed. "No way is that a word."  
  
"Look it up," Joanne retorted.  
  
"Define it!"  
  
"Fine: pretty much everything that's left your mouth tonight, Honeybear."  
  
Maureen shot eye daggers and grabbed the pitifully small pocket dictionary from me, paging through it furiously. "HA! It's not in here!"  
  
Collins, though certainly reluctant to do anything that would put him on Maureen's bad side, couldn't resist. "It's a word," he informed us, marching over to the kitchen and pulling a large, worn hardcover book out of an obscured cupboard.  
  
"That's a *dictionary*?" Mark asked in disbelief. "I never bothered to open it."  
  
"I always thought it was a phone book," I chimed in.  
  
Collins smiled at us, rolling his eyes, brought the giant book to our circle, and sat down. "Galimatias," he repeated, reading off a page. "Incoherent or nonsensical talk."  
  
"Shit!!" Maureen yelped. Joanne laughed a wicked laugh. Collins snapped the book shut, watching them amusedly.  
  
"What do you expect, the way we play?" Joanne grinned. "Who ever heard of Unlimited-Letter-Supply Scrabble?"  
  
"It's better than Strip Scrabble," Mark pointed out, glaring at Maureen, who offered a mischievous wink.  
  
I was content to remain an observer for the greater part of the evening, watching the members of our odd little family, settled around in a circle on the living room floor of the loft. Maureen, sitting contentedly on Mark's lap and stealing his letters when she felt the urge. Joanne and Collins, who, especially upon discovery of the omniscient dictionary, were so obviously conspiring to create the most complex words imaginable. And Mark, trapped by Maureen but enjoying it as much as he ever had, stopping every few minutes to glance across the circle at me and smile.  
  
I wondered how it was that only four days ago I had been in Santa Fe. How only this morning I had been in a cheap motel in Ohio. And how tonight, we were all sitting here on ragged old throw pillows, together again.  
  
Well, almost all of us. I couldn't help but realize we would always be incomplete without Angel, who had in fact invented Unlimited-Letter-Supply Scrabble; and Mimi, who always won the prize for spelling out more dirty words than anyone else... and whom everyone seemed to be asking about tonight. Even me. Shouldn't we wait until she gets home from work? Wouldn't she want to be here for this?  
  
But Mark, time and again, stated that he didn't think she would be quite up to this tonight.  
  
It was about nine o'clock when everyone finally cleared out. Maureen was still arguing about some word Joanne had created, so as everyone was heading towards the front door, she planted a huge kiss on Collins, who blinked a few times, shook his head thoughtfully, trying not to laugh, and went along his merry way. Joanne cleverly noted how that meant nothing; Collins was gay. Refusing to be defeated, Maureen spotted Mark across the room and lunged for him. He ducked behind me. This didn't faze her even slightly; she kissed me instead.  
  
I pushed her away, whined that I got hair dye in my mouth, and waved off apologies from Joanne as I did my best to keep a straight face.  
  
The loft grew immensely soundless the moment our company was reduced to two. I don't know why I was surprised; Mark was always the quiet one, and although I was a shameless pessimist with a temper, I usually wasn't all that talkative either. It just felt strange to be home... really home.  
  
I watched from the wall, leaning against the door, as Mark proceeded to empty the Scrabble letters into the little plastic bag. But he stopped, staring at the board closely for what felt, to an onlooker, like a very long time.  
  
"What is it?" I asked, walking over and following his gaze to the half- cleared board.  
  
"Nothing," he answered quickly, snapping out of his concentration as he became suddenly aware of my presence, and sweeping the rest letter blocks into the bag.  
  
He hadn't been quick enough, though, as I spotted what had been spelled out on the board:  
  
"MARKY—(a sideways "I" as the dash) TELL HIM"  
  
I looked up at my roommate, who seemed suddenly very interested in fitting the game pieces back in the box. "Tell me what?" I demanded.  
  
"What?"  
  
"The board."  
  
"I don't know. Maureen's weird."  
  
I let it go at this. Whenever I didn't want to talk, he knew when to leave me alone. I figured it was my turn to return the favor. Mark rarely kept anything from me, but this was obviously his business, and he would tell me when he was damn good and ready. Either that, or it really was nothing at all.  
  
But I knew better.  
  
Mark grabbed his coat and keys. "I'm going to work to pick up my camera. Should be back in about an hour."  
  
"Okay. Here." I tossed him my keys. They flew past him, as I knew they would. He reached over to pick them up. "We have a car now, you know," I added with a smile.  
  
His face lit up, just a little bit. "Right. Thanks."  
  
Even though the noise level hadn't really changed, the loft seemed even more lonely and silent without him. I spent the first half hour with my guitar, tuning it, cursing at it when it wouldn't tune, experimenting with a few different riffs in my song, perfecting some parts I wasn't sure about... and in general feeling ecstatic that I was simply back home, playing my guitar.  
  
After some time, I placed it safely back in its case, realizing I hadn't been in my room once since I returned, and suddenly a little curious as to what effect time had had on it. It was exactly the same way I'd left it. The door had been closed, and it had the very distinct smell of long-time abandonment. Even the t-shirt I'd flung over the back of a chair before I left was still there. The photo of Mimi and me on our six-month anniversary was still on the bedside. To be honest, I didn't think anyone had even opened this door since I'd left.  
  
Mark's room, upon further boredom-induced exploration, seemed more lived-in than even the living room. He was a strange guy; half the time his room would be so tidy you were afraid to breathe, and other times—like now—it was so full of misplaced clothes and film reels that you could barely find a spot of carpet to step on.  
  
I found an accessible item on the dresser and picked it up. It was a roll of film, recently developed, as I noted from the package it came in. From the top photo of a cake that read "Happy Birthday Mimi", it didn't take much to guess the occasion.  
  
Our gang always took the most interesting photos; I had to give them that. The first few involved Mark and Maureen fighting over some kind of... ah, it was a box of matches. Hmm. It must have been a very special box, because as the photos progressed, so did their levels of aggression, finally resulting with Mark on the floor, and Maureen standing over him with a giant couch cushion raised menacingly above her head.  
  
My smile faded rapidly as I first spotted Benny in a photo. Benny... why was he here? Why the hell was he at her birthday party? My anger only increased as no one else in the photos seemed to have the qualms about it that I did. He was seen, smiling, no less, with Mark at the table, Maureen on the couch (still holding her giant cushion and a matchbox, triumphantly), and Mimi in the kitchen. She had her arms around him.  
  
I should have known.  
  
I tried to put it out of my mind and enjoy the rest of the roll. Joanne and Collins performing what appeared to be a duet—neither one looking very enthusiastic; I assumed a certain drama queen had put them up to it. And a final one of Mark sitting on the couch, with Mimi curled up on his lap, laughing about something.  
  
The front door opened; I quickly slid the pictures back into the envelope and scampered out of his room. He was just coming through the door, camera first, and the rest of him followed—he panned towards my footsteps and brought me into focus.  
  
I chuckled. "Now you look a little more familiar."  
  
"First shot Roger," he announced. "He's home. April 29th, ten p.m., Eastern Standard Time." He paused, lowering the camera. "Where's Mimi?"  
  
A shrug, more nervous than usual—I hadn't had a camera on me in six months. "Still at work, I guess."  
  
Mark switched the camera off, shifting his attention entirely, and shook his head. "She's always home by ten."  
  
As one who hadn't been informed of or accustomed to any of their recent schedules, I just shrugged again, helpless. Clutching his camera protectively, he crossed the room to the kitchen counter and reached for the phone, punching a single button. I never knew we had speed dial.  
  
"Kate, it's Mark. Is Mimi there?" Silence. "Well, when did she leave?" A far more deafening silence, which seemed to squelch his voice almost entirely. "Thanks."  
  
The receiver dropped to its hook listlessly.  
  
"What?" I asked. "What's going on?"  
  
His face, naturally fair-toned, had whitened completely. "She's not there. She hasn't been there all day."  
  
I wasn't sure why that sick feeling in my stomach crept up on me like it did; after all, this was Mimi—no matter what Mark said, I never knew her to be home by ten. Hell, usually she was *still* home at ten. Her fun started at midnight.  
  
Then again, she'd lied to me. That could not be good. Oh, very sharp observation, Roger.  
  
Mark turned back to the phone as though it were the enemy. "I... I'm calling..." He never finished, but punched another button. "Maureen. Is Mimi there? ...No reason." Brief silence. "Well if she were *here*, then I wouldn't be asking if she were *there*, now would I?! God, Maureen. Just tell me if you hear from her."  
  
He tried to hang up, but from the tone of his voice and his rising irritation, she was insisting on asking more stupid questions. I toned them out after awhile, lost in my own newfound worries. All I remember was Mark telling her to stop crying, everything was fine... and then hanging up.  
  
The phone no longer seemed to be an enemy, but rather a savior. Anything, after all, would be better than the silence that was choking us now.  
  
"She's always back by ten," Mark repeated, almost to himself. "You—you don't—you haven't—things are different, Roge."  
  
"Mark, what's going on?"  
  
I was relieved that this at least forced him to look at me, but only more agitated when he shook his head absentmindedly. "Nothing."  
  
"I'm going to look for her."  
  
Although I hadn't even taken one step, Mark ran to my side and put his hand on my arm, as though I were halfway to the door. "No. I'll go."  
  
I moved away and grabbed my jacket. "No. She's my girlfriend. *I'll* go."  
  
He seemed not content with this, but somehow defeated. My reason seemed legitimate enough for him, at any rate, and he stood motionless in the middle of the room. I muttered a quick farewell of "We'll be back," and vanished.  
  
  
  
  
  
[Review if you want more. :P] 


	4. 

A/N: 05-03-02 — Much thanks to everyone, the reviews are inspiring. As for this chapter—having never been to rehab, I have no idea how they work, so I have done my best. Feel free to yell at me if I am completely off in my portrayal. :P  
  
Kelby — Awww, you poor thing! I know the feeling of having nothing to look forward to but Rentfic. Want a good pastime? Go rent the OBC's movies—I particularly recommend Adventures in Babysitting (Anthony at age 15—NOT TO BE MISSED) and SLC Punk, which I hated, but Adam has a scene in which he's positively irresistible. Email me for a complete list. ;)  
  
Firedancer — I'll write more if you update "1:37pm". :) I just about died laughing at part one.  
  
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine. If they were, can you even imagine how much more evil I would be to them? ;) (...As the entire OBC shrinks into a corner, eyeing me frightfully...)  
  
NOTE: This is an unskimmable chapter—most is flashback, so read carefully.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
  
  
4. [Mark's perspective.]  
  
  
  
I think I must have been glued to that spot in the living room for an entire minute before collapsing on the couch—that's how long it took me to realize what had actually happened. Not in the last five minutes, or even today... but in the past six months.  
  
In the space of only a few seconds, I kept trying to make sense out of it all, in vain. To somehow make it seem right. That maybe, just maybe, I was feeling guiltier than I should.  
  
No. Not a chance in hell.  
  
The couch was soft and squishy, as it always was. It seemed to get proportionally softer and squishier with age. But it was a bad place to be right now. It was the couch on which I had spent hours, days and probably weeks or months if you totaled it up, sitting there with Roger as we ate our Ramen noodles or blocks of cheese, or listened to him play his guitar, or watched a film I was working on, or just complained about how freezing or stifling it was.  
  
It was the couch where Maureen and I had our first kiss, so long ago. Before Joanne. Before April. Before... this. It was also the couch where she sat me down and told me she was leaving me for another woman.  
  
It was the couch I'd been sitting on when we received the phone call from Collins that Angel was gone.  
  
It was the couch Mimi and I fell asleep on, that day she came home from rehab. She'd just sat there by herself, so forlornly, as I busied myself in the kitchen, attempting to make her a sandwich. I finally abandoned it, sat down beside her, and held her for the rest of the afternoon as we drifted off into respectively troubled slumber. When I awoke later that night, she had fixed sandwiches for us both and covered me with a blanket.  
  
That's when I began to fall.  
  
I forget how to begin...  
  
When Roger left six months ago, none of us spoke for a week. Even Maureen, who quite possibly had the biggest mouth of anyone I'd ever met. We'd occasionally pop up at each other's door, though, just needing a hug or someone to share a cup of coffee with. Everyone had always implied that I was glue that kept our family together... but obviously they were wrong. The glue was our friendship—we were just the pieces of wood it held together.  
  
And when he left, we lost a piece.  
  
Mimi wouldn't answer her door or phone all week, even though I knew she was home. I could occasionally hear her radio, or the shower running, if she left her window open. After a week of this, I called Benny and asked if he would take us to the rehab clinic, since a) I didn't have a car, and b) even if I did have a car, I had no idea how to get there.  
  
And that, I suppose, is how things with Benny started to get back to normal. There were far too many more important things to worry about than the rent, and to my surprise, he accepted this without comment. I didn't know what had happened between him and Mimi, and I didn't want to know. Seeing that he obviously cared for her now was enough, at this point.  
  
Even for the hour-long ride, she wouldn't speak to me. I knew, in reality, she was angry with Roger, not me—at least I tried to convince myself of it. But I also feared that she partly blamed me for letting him go. I was the best friend. I was the one who was supposed to talk some sense into him. To keep him from leaving her, and me, and all of us.  
  
In my heart, I knew Mimi didn't blame me at all. I blamed myself.  
  
I caught her eye in the car mirror. *I tried,* I wanted so badly to tell her. *You know I tried.*  
  
Our week-long separation, far more emotional than physical, ended when we reached the clinic. We all climbed out of the car in silence, and she started crying. I expected Benny to jump to her rescue, which he started to do, but she simply walked over to me and collapsed, listless and frightened, in my arms. We sat down beside the car on the cold pavement, and I held her, and I promised I wouldn't leave her here if she didn't want me to.  
  
But she did want me to. And I left her. And it was a very long, empty ride back to New York City.  
  
I was allowed to visit her twice a week. I tried to drag the rest of our gang along, but the staff wouldn't let me. They wouldn't even let *me* come until I thought to tell them I was her husband—family only, after all. They bought it. Mimi and I shared a sly, wicked laugh when I told her the plan. It was the first time I'd seen her smile since Roger left.  
  
It was quite possibly the most unfair arrangement they could have bestowed on me. Alone in the loft for five days, until Sunday and Thursday, when I would grab the earliest bus I could find and spend the ride filming various passengers I found to be particularly interesting studies... much to their chagrin.  
  
It was on my fourth visit that I began to hate myself for leaving her there.  
  
I attempted to shrug off the herd of nurses who were accompanying me, but there were too many of them and only one of me.  
  
One caught me by the arm. "Are you Roger?"  
  
I watched her carefully. "Roger's out of town," I answered quietly, swallowing the lump in my throat. Out of town, and out of our lives, and not even bothering to call or write. No—this was neither the time nor place to vent my anger.  
  
"Can you bring him here?" she asked, her eyes desperately pleading.  
  
"I'll try," I lied, hoping that would at least force her to leave me alone, and it did... but the feeling of triumph diminished into guilt as she squeezed my hand and thanked me profusely.  
  
When I reached her room, Mimi was curled up on her bed as she usually was. They told me she was doing well, although I had begun to wonder what they were going by. 'Well' to me would be the girl who used to wake us up at two in the morning to go clubbing with her, or who used all her tips one week to have an elaborate birthday cake made for Roger in the shape of a guitar.  
  
She'd been so full of life. Would she ever be again?  
  
I crawled over to the other side of the bed and sat down next to her, relieved to see that she had at least looked up at me. "Hi," I smiled.  
  
I waited for the usual inquiry—had Roger called? Every time she would ask, and every time I would have to say no, and every time we would spend most of our time in silence, unless I was feeling particularly witty and thought of something that would generate even the tiniest smile.  
  
But this time, she said nothing. She simply sat up, leaned against me, and put her arms around my waist. We stayed like that for nearly two hours.  
  
I'm not sure how the thought even entered my mind. Maybe it was my own obsessive instinct to take care of my friends, or maybe I just missed that smile of hers too much. Or maybe I was simply terrified that Roger would never return, and she would stay curled up on that bed forever, and I would lose yet another one of my best friends.  
  
Whatever my reason, it didn't excuse what I was about to do. But when I came home that Sunday afternoon, in a matter of minutes I found myself sitting at the old desk in my room with a piece of paper, a pencil, and the handwritten lyrics to one of Roger's songs propped up against a lamp.  
  
His handwriting was remarkably difficult to forge. It was full of unpredictable loops and jagged edges, and he never wrote an 'e' the same way twice. Damn him. But anyone who knew me at all knew I had a knack for details—I was a filmmaker, after all, and with page after page of writing the same lines and letters over and over, my writing began to eerily resemble that of the songwriter's.  
  
Six hours and eighteen practice pages later, my hands trembling with guilt, I held up the finished product to the light and admired my work.  
  
'To my love,' it began.  
  
'You can't imagine what I have been reduced to without you. Only a shadow of my former self. My only hope is to see you again... and I will. I promise. Not today, or tomorrow, but soon. I'll come home to you. And I'm sorry.  
  
I love you.  
  
Roger.'  
  
The awful, nauseous feeling in my stomach only grew worse as I signed his name with such ease, such precision, with nearly the perfection of someone who had made forgery his life work. I felt only worse for being so proud of myself—the text was uncanny. He may as well have written it himself.  
  
But he hadn't.  
  
I stuffed it in an envelope, for no reason other than to get it out of my sight, scribbled her address on the back, and collapsed on my bed.  
  
On my next visit, I was beside myself—both with guilt and with anticipation. I bounded past the nurses, clutching a white envelope in one hand and my camera in the other—although, as always, they caught up with me and confiscated the latter until the end of my visit. I hated this damn place. No one but family, no more than twice a week, no cameras...  
  
My irritability vanished when I entered her room and found her actually sitting up. She smiled as I sat down beside her. "You look happy about something," I remarked, greeting her with a hug and slipping the envelope into my pocket. Maybe I wouldn't need it after all.  
  
"Maureen tried to come see me," she explained, still grinning at the memory. "She told everyone she was my sister."  
  
Staring down at my shoes, I smiled at an image of Maureen being dragged away by nurses as she gave some protest speech about the unfair rules of rehab clinics. "Are you doing okay?"  
  
Her gaze followed mine, but I looked up to see her reaction. "What do you think?" she whispered to a spot on the floor.  
  
Still wildly uncertain if I should go through with this at all, I pulled the letter out of my pocket and handed it to her, half-hoping she wouldn't reach out and take it, and I could back out of this entirely. "This, uh..." Where had my voice gone? I cleared my throat. "This came for you."  
  
Her eyes were suddenly aglow, studying every inch of the envelope... almost too carefully for my comfort. At long last she ripped it open and pulled out the all too familiar piece of paper inside, reading silently.  
  
Her eyes filled with tears until they began to drop, one by one, onto the sheet of paper. She folded it neatly and placed it back in the envelope, throwing her arms around me. "He's alive," she breathed in disbelief.  
  
The rest of my time there that day couldn't have gone better. It was as though the fog of depression had magically lifted. She was no longer the 'shadow of her former self' that had inspired the phrase in my letter. She was Mimi again.  
  
That night, I sat at my desk and scribbled another letter, my skill and satisfaction washing away most of the guilt. The next week, I wrote another. And another. The joy they brought to her face was more addicting than any drug, and the closeness that developed between us in the next couple of weeks was something, I began to realize, I never wanted to give up.  
  
When they announced she would be ready to go home at the end of the week, there was no doubt in my mind that I had done the right thing.  
  
She stayed with me in the loft when she came home, and we were practically inseparable. When we sat on the couch late at night, making fun of the people in magazines, or playing Scrabble, or just talking... it was hard to believe that only weeks ago, she was barely able to speak a word to me, barely able to pull herself out of bed.  
  
And now, here she was, laughing at my dorky jokes, and talking about starting work again, and falling asleep on the couch with me, and throwing Cheerios at me during breakfast, or belting out Broadway showtunes to wake me up. Collins, Maureen, Joanne, and even Benny stopped by a couple times that first week, and little by little, I felt our family coming back together again.  
  
It was easy to believe, in moments like these, that nothing terrible had ever happened to us.  
  
And then, one night, our world was flipped upside down.  
  
I had just spent my evening at an interview with a friend of Collins'—a professor at NYU who needed someone to help her students with some film projects they were working on. She offered me the job on the spot when I showed her some of my work, and although I was tempted to call Mimi from a pay phone to tell her the good news, I kept my enthusiasm in check until I reached the door of our loft, and bounded cheerfully into the living room.  
  
Greeted by silence, I set my camera down on the table, giving it one last, appreciative look. "Mimi?" I called—well, considering the size of our apartment, one doesn't exactly 'call'.  
  
She emerged from my room, and my face quickly spread into a smile. But that smile faded as fast as it had come. Clad in one of my old t-shirts, not an uncommon sight, and her favorite pair of jeans, she stood frozen in the doorway. Her cheeks were streaked with tears, some dried and some still damp, and although my instinct was to go put my arms around her, the look in her eyes convinced me otherwise.  
  
She held up a piece of paper in her hand, but lacking energy, promptly dropped it back to her side. Her voice, though barely audible, carried more fury than I could have imagined.  
  
"What the fuck is this?"  
  
My eyes forced themselves to the paper in her hands. I recognized it instantly, far too instantly, as one of my practice sheets. Written on the same stationery as the letters. And with closer inspection, I realized what was in her hand was not one piece of paper, but rather a handful of them. Every single practice letter I'd ever scribbled.  
  
"Mimi..." I paused, long enough for her to start yelling at me if she so desired. But her silence was worse. That unwavering pain in her eyes. I couldn't take it. "Let me explain—"  
  
"No, I don't think I should."  
  
"Please, you've got to let me—"  
  
"No."  
  
How was I supposed to react to this? My heart was already running a mile a minute, and I couldn't think of one single explanation for what I did that didn't sound absolutely insane, pathetic, or dishonest. I tried one last time: "Mimi, I swear to God, I—"  
  
"WHY, Mark??!" she demanded, slamming the letters down on the table. "Were you just never going to tell me? You were going to sit back and let me believe that he was all right, and he wasn't dead, or hurt, and he was coming home?"  
  
"I only did it because I—"  
  
"You thought I wouldn't find out?"  
  
"No, I just—"  
  
She burst into tears, and it was so rare that she actually cried in front of me that I had no idea what to do. Usually she would wait until I left, or hide in her room, and the only evidence I would have would be the red eyes and the occasional slight sniffle.  
  
She collapsed on the couch, hugging a lifeless throw pillow to her chest. "I can't believe you did this," she whispered. "I can't fucking believe you did this, Mark."  
  
Fully aware that I was taking a liberty just by reducing the distance between us, I sat down on the couch and tentatively pulled her into my embrace. She didn't fight it, and for that, I allowed myself to start breathing again. I let her cry against my chest, just as she had done the day we took her to the clinic. I'd been so reluctant to let her go then, and even more reluctant to let her go now. I couldn't lose her. She was all I had left.  
  
"I can't believe you did this," she repeated, her voice gentle and somehow dazed.  
  
I sighed, wishing there were something I could do to punish myself for this. "Mimi..." I choked, "I am so, so sorry... I only thought they would—"  
  
She pulled away from me, just enough to look into my eyes, and gently pressed a finger to my lips, shaking her head slowly. "I meant... I can't believe someone would care about me that much."  
  
I would never understand women as long as I lived.  
  
Her words broke my heart, and for a moment I feared that I would start crying too. She forgave me. She knew why I'd done it. She knew I only did it because I hated seeing her so miserable. Because I missed Roger just as much as she did. Because I wanted to see that smile again. Because I loved her.  
  
I loved her...  
  
Oh, God.  
  
Did she know?  
  
I didn't even know until four seconds ago.  
  
There was no first move... no moments at all, really, that I remember, prior to that kiss. One minute we were staring at each other, and the next, her lips were on mine and the rest of life was pushed aside.  
  
Maybe ten seconds passed... maybe a minute. Maybe two. When there was finally enough space between us to look into each other's eyes, I became slowly aware of my surroundings. In reality, we may have been in the same room and on the same couch we'd been on two minutes ago, and every night for the past week, but now everything was permanently altered. The feeling of her warm hand on the back of my neck... that old t-shirt of mine, which now smelled like wildflowers and ocean spray and chamomile...  
  
I reached towards the other end of the couch, turned off the lamp, pulled a blanket over us, and curled up against her. I can't remember ever falling asleep that night. We didn't talk much—there was no need to. Talking could be done tomorrow. We just lay there, squashed together on the sunken couch, finding each other in the darkness for an occasional kiss. And long after I suspected she'd fallen asleep, I heard her whisper, "I love you."  
  
It wasn't a night of mistakes, you know, where you kiss one of your best friends and then agree never to mention it again. No... instead it was the start of something I'd never experienced before, or imagined I even could. We went on, growing closer as we had been for the past month... except now there were a few small changes. She smiled more. There was a certain twinkle in her eyes when she looked at me from across a room. A feeling of completeness overtook me as we fell asleep together, on her bed, or mine, or the couch, or the floor among a pile of old photographs or Scrabble pieces or warm, clean laundry. And the sensation I got when she would walk up behind me, silently, and slide her arms around my waist...  
  
Despite how slowly we took every step, we found it impossible to evade Maureen. (And that's just a general life rule, by the way. She's inescapable.) One morning she decided to pay us a visit just as we were coming back from breakfast at a waffle place down the street. Mimi had whispered some sinfully naughty comment to me on our way back, about waffles and sausages and syrup. My face had turned crimson and my jaw just about dropped to the floor, which she found so uproariously amusing that she had to stop me on the stairs, pin me against the wall, and kiss me.  
  
The distinct sound of someone deliberately clearing their throat caught our attention, and we broke away to see Maureen sitting on the welcome mat, leaning leisurely against the door with a wide, amused, I-just-saw- something-I-wasn't-supposed-to-see grin.  
  
Naturally, by the end of the day, Joanne, Collins, and Benny were well aware of everything that was going on between Mimi and me... which, to Maureen's disappointment, wasn't a whole lot at this point. Although understandably surprised at first, they seemed to accept it rather willingly, and before we knew it, the six of us were spending more time together than I had ever expected... and it felt wonderful to be part of that family again—this time, in a slightly new light.  
  
It wasn't long before Mimi and Maureen unexpectedly seemed to emerge as best friends. Maureen would drag her to auditions (oftentimes begging her to pose as a prestigious talent agent), and Mimi would convince her to come to work with her. I remember they even talked me into going to the club once, and I watched in disbelief as those two wildcats raked in over five hundred dollars that night in tips, using little more than Maureen's shamelessness and Mimi's hands-on (no pun intended) experience.  
  
Just watching them together, goofing off like ten-year-olds, made me see how lucky I'd been, in just one lifetime, to have fallen in love with both of them.  
  
We all planned a surprise party for Mimi's twenty-first birthday. It still shocked me, when I stopped to think about it, that she was underage. Granted, I had been too, only five years ago. But I suppose it was just hard to believe that, with everything that had happened in her life, she was barely out of her teens.  
  
She was stronger, I think, than any of us realized.  
  
I filmed the entire party, of course—it proved to be a truly memorable evening. Maureen, against everyone's wishes, had brought a Twister mat, and somehow roped Joanne and me into playing with her. But what I remember most about our time (aside from a traumatizing brawl over a box of matches) was around the time when everyone was leaving. Collins stopped when he reached the door and led me over to a corner of the room that wasn't full of chattering people.  
  
"Mark," he told me, "Thank you."  
  
"For what?"  
  
"For taking care of our little girl."  
  
I nodded, slowly coming to an understanding. Mimi didn't need anyone to take care of her, but I knew everyone else needed to know that someone was anyway. She was the baby of our family... and it was my responsibility, as the dutiful boyfriend—although that title still sounded foreign to me—to look after her. For all of us.  
  
Maybe no one else knew it... but I needed her to take care of me, too.  
  
I waited until everyone left before giving her my present. I handed her a small box I had wrapped hastily at the last minute, having been far more preoccupied with the content than the package it came in. It was a video tape, unlabeled. She looked up at me and smiled, asking what it was.  
  
"It's just... stuff," I replied lamely. "You can watch it on your new TV."  
  
"Well, come watch it with me!" She began dragging me by the arm to the living room.  
  
I took a few steps back towards the bedroom. "Nah, it's embarrassing," I whined, afraid I was already blushing. "You should watch it alone."  
  
She put on a pout, but consented, and for the next half-hour, I waited in our room, sprawled out on the bed with my arms folded behind my head. I'd worked for two weeks on the video, which was really nothing more than clips and memorable highlights from the past month, and some priceless moments I'd caught when she didn't realize the camera was on. And a brief, completely corny little speech I made about how special she was. To me, and to everyone. But especially to me.  
  
My thoughts had drifted completely by the time she opened the bedroom door, and stepped inside, almost shyly. I snapped out of my daydream immediately to look at her. Her eyes were filled with tears as she made her way over to the bed, lying down beside me and propping herself up on her elbow. I gave her a small smile, and for several moments we just watched each other, until she finally leaned over and kissed me.  
  
Completely breathless when we broke apart, I put my arms around her. "I guess you liked it then," I commented, grinning.  
  
"Thank you, Mark," she whispered, and that was all I needed to hear.  
  
I kissed her softly. "Happy birthday."  
  
Before I realized it, she had succeeded in unbuttoning my shirt and tossing it across the room, and we were making out like teenagers—not surprising, really—she was only two years away from being one. But all at once, without warning, I felt her pulling away, and as I opened my eyes, she was staring at me, tears threatening to fall.  
  
"I can't, baby," she whispered. "I can't let you..."  
  
I opened my mouth to ask what, what was it she couldn't she let me do... when it hit me.  
  
She was HIV positive. I was not.  
  
I knew that. That should not be a surprise. So why was it?  
  
Now I understood. She couldn't let me risk that. Even with the best precautions, there was a chance. There was always a chance.  
  
The same chance that eventually caused April's death, and sent Roger into a seclusion when he came home from withdrawal. The seclusion that lasted until he met...  
  
My whole body tensed up, but I held her tightly, taking a deep breath. "I don't care," I told her. "I love you."  
  
She sighed. "Mark..."  
  
If for no other reason than to keep her quiet, I lightly brushed my lips against hers, leaning just slightly forward to whisper in her ear, "I live this moment as my last."  
  
She watched me for a moment, then pulled me close to her. No more words were said that night.  
  
And four months later, I was here. Nowhere. Alone.  
  
Here, on the couch where she first told me she loved me. Where Roger had once said to me, in a rare moment of vulnerability, how he trusted me more than he had ever trusted anyone else in his life.  
  
I'd seduced my best friend's girlfriend. I betrayed him. I betrayed our friendship. And he had absolutely no idea.  
  
There was a knock at the door. No... no, I decided. This was not a good time for aforementioned best friend and girlfriend to come waltzing through the front door. In fact, I couldn't think of a worse time.  
  
But Mimi never knocked, and I didn't think Roger would either, so, feeling slightly more safe, I crossed the room and pulled the door open cautiously. "Joanne..."  
  
She smiled weakly. "Hey."  
  
"What are you doing here?" I stepped aside to let her in. She glanced around the apartment as though it were a foreign country. I'd never seen her in such a distracted state. Come to think of it, I rarely saw her in any state but perfectly put-together.  
  
"I called Benny," she told me. "She's not there. I believe him. Maureen's out with Roger, looking for her. She wouldn't stop crying, she wouldn't talk to me... she's worried sick..." Her voice trailed off, and I knew her last words, had she been strong enough to say them, would have been, 'and so am I'.  
  
My mouth went dry. "You didn't—I mean, she didn't—tell him... did she?"  
  
She shook her head, still in her own world and avoiding my look. "I told her that what happened with you and Mimi was none of her business, and that you'd tell Roger when you were ready."  
  
"Right," I answered feebly. In truth, my selfish side had no intention of ever telling Roger anything.  
  
Obviously sensing that I hadn't meant what I said one bit, Joanne turned to me, her face flooded with warning and sudden doubt of her faith in me. "Mark... you are going to tell him, aren't you?"  
  
I threw my arms up in exasperation, and dropped them. Whose side was she on, anyway? "What am I supposed to say?" I demanded. "'Oh, by the by, Roger, I've been sleeping with your girlfriend for four months.'?"  
  
"Honey, he's your best friend."  
  
"He left her!" I reminded her, more loudly than was necessary. "And he left me. We're not accountable to him anymore."  
  
Joanne walked over to me and dragged me to the couch. "Look, Mark, I didn't come over here to argue with you. I just wanted to see how you're coping."  
  
"Oh, hmm," I began, prepared to take full advantage of this. "Let's see, how am I coping? Well, how would you feel if the person you loved more than anything in the world suddenly disappeared without telling you where she was going?"  
  
Joanne gave a bitter chuckle. "She does, at least once a week."  
  
I clenched my teeth. "That... is *different*."  
  
"I know," she assured me quietly. I'm not sure why I expected more, but for quite a time, there was only a halfhearted calm between us. Until the inevitable: "You have to tell him."  
  
"Why??" I exploded, as though this was my first time even daring to consider it. "Why do I have to tell him?"  
  
"Because you do."  
  
I'm not sure why that statement, so devoid of any profound argument, carried a conviction strong enough to convince me.  
  
"Yeah, I know."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
[Whew. Long chapter. I warned you all at the beginning that I love angst, now didn't I? Hehehe. I know, Kanoi, I've gone off the deep end—I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist the angst potential. ;) How am I doing with Mark? I was shocked to discover he's harder to write than Roger. I dunno why. Suggestions welcome—fan letters or flames, I don't care, go review. :P And now I'm going to be late for class—ack! The troubles of being a Renthead... ;)] 


	5. 

A/N: 05-06-02—Not a lot to say here. Um... Okay—I love artichokes. There, now I have some author's notes. ;) (It just doesn't feel complete without them!)  
  
Linnell — As you are one of my favorite Rentfic authors (can't begin to say how much I adore Community of Their Own and A New Hope), I am flattered by your reviews. :) Much thanks.  
  
Liss — Same goes; and aren't you going to add more to White Lit Wall??? You simply HAVE to, you know!  
  
NYTW Quote-of-the-Week: "I'm lonely, bored, and horny!" ~Mark  
  
Disclaimer: MINE!!!! ALL MINE! Nyahahaaa, I am so creative! (Actually, they're all Jonathan Larson's. The genius. *contemplative sigh*)  
  
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5. [Roger's perspective.]  
  
  
  
The fourteen days that followed were longer and lonelier than six months in Santa Fe.  
  
Mimi never came home that night. I finally did, though—about four-thirty the next morning. I'd spent most of the last several hours with Maureen; after I ran into her at the café around midnight, she begged me to let her tag along. We searched the city, almost entirely without conversation, except for the times I would turn around and snap at her to stop crying.  
  
The loft was cold and lifeless when I returned to it. Birds were already starting to squeak outside, and the faintest hint of sunlight was forcing its way through the window. Mark was fast asleep on the couch, telephone resting on his chest, and a folded piece of paper clasped loosely in one hand. When I lifted it from his grasp, I risked one last glance to make sure he was asleep, and read:  
  
'Roger,  
  
I don't think I know how to tell you this in person, so I'm going to write it down instead.'  
  
And that was it. Sleep had obviously overpowered creativity. Whatever it was he had to tell me, now I would never know. Mark was terrible at dealing with confrontation. We both were. But he was so passive, and I was so aggressive, and it was bad combination. Just the thought of one of our arguments was enough to make me dizzy.  
  
For a few moments longer, I watched him though the semi-darkness... as though the rest of that letter would be somehow imprinted on him. But I knew the only way inside that intricate mind of his was through his eyes... and right now, they were closed.  
  
Not having anywhere else to go, I made it to my room, which now felt more foreign than Santa Fe ever had... and collapsed on my bed.  
  
Mark was gone when I pulled myself out of bed the next morning. He'd left a message on the kitchen counter. I don't know why I expected it to be the rest of that letter he'd started, or some note saying that Mimi was back. All it said was that he'd gone to work.  
  
He didn't come home until almost nine that night... and then disappeared into his room. There was no note the next morning.  
  
He did this nearly every day for the next two weeks.  
  
In all those months on the other side of the country, I'd never felt as detached from him as I did now.  
  
Occasionally I would persuade myself to wake up early, before he left. I would sit at the table, watching him dart around the kitchen for a hurried breakfast, and try desperately to think of something constructive to say before the minutes counted down to eight o'clock, and he'd be out the door.  
  
Every time that front door shut behind him, I felt like throwing things.  
  
I finally did. Our apartment no longer has a spoon rest.  
  
Why couldn't he just say it? I would scream silently inside my head, gazing angrily at stains on the floor or scratches on the wall. Why couldn't he just say he blamed me? And that he hated me for leaving, and now he hated me for coming back and driving away the one friend he had left.  
  
That was selfish of me, I knew. It would be easier if he blamed me—then I wouldn't have to do it myself.  
  
It soon became apparent that he wasn't the only one avoiding me. I left three messages on Maureen and Joanne's machine. Saying hi. Asking if Maureen had stopped crying. Asking if they'd heard anything from Mimi yet. After much longer than was appropriate, Joanne finally called back to say they hadn't heard anything. But I knew it was just to discourage me from nagging.  
  
It didn't make sense. They'd never pushed me away like this.  
  
Collins, however, saw past whatever everyone else seemed unable to. I called him late one afternoon while Mark was at work, and we hadn't talked for thirty seconds before he invited me over.  
  
I grabbed a bowl of cereal, drove to his apartment, and knocked on his door. I was getting very tired of knocking on doors. All they did, once opened, was eliminate another possible place Mimi could have escaped to. And there weren't very many doors left.  
  
"It's open," a voice called from inside.  
  
That invitation wasn't actually as welcoming as it may have sounded, as it turned out—I'd barely pushed the door open before I was trapped by piles and stacks and small heaps of papers, books, and folders. In the middle of it all was Collins, sitting in front of his laptop, typing diligently.  
  
He looked up from his work, smiling, pulled off his glasses and dropped them lightly onto a chair. "Hey."  
  
"This is worse than Mark's room!" I observed with a chuckle. "I thought you swore you'd never go back to NYU."  
  
"Oh, I did," he laughed, shoving a few smaller piles together to create a path from the front door into the living room. "That plan had to be revised when the bills started piling up."  
  
"That's selling out," I grinned.  
  
"Yes, it is," he agreed happily, flopping onto the couch and handing me a Coke. "But my TA happens to be very good eye candy, so all is well."  
  
I laughed. "Good excuse."  
  
His voice diminished to a quiet, halfhearted tone... as though if it were less audible, then my answer might somehow be different. "Mimi's still gone?"  
  
I nodded.  
  
Funny that it took such a simple conversation for me to realize how much I'd missed being in a room with someone I could talk to. I wasn't a big talker, really, but it wasn't the actual words I missed. Just knowing that I *could* talk, if I wanted to, was enough. Mark had always been that someone, of course, until now. It wasn't that he seemed angry with me, or even resentful. It was as though we'd run out of things to say to each other... which seemed quite impossible. After all, we'd rarely discussed much of significance anyway. We just talked. About nothing. And it meant so much more than so many... somethings.  
  
"So... how's Mark doing?" Leave it to the philosopher to sort through my maze of thoughts, pinpointing the one question I wouldn't possibly know how to answer.  
  
I caught his glance. "Why does everyone keep asking that?"  
  
"I—I don't know." He turned back to his glass of Coke. "He isn't talking much, is he?"  
  
"How did you know?"  
  
"Just a guess."  
  
It dawned on me, suddenly, that if Mark knew something I didn't, and Maureen knew it, then most likely Collins would. Well, of course—if Maureen knew it, the rest of New York State probably did too.  
  
"Is Mark keeping something from me?"  
  
His expression wasn't altered in any way by my inquiry, and from that I knew he'd been expecting the question. Expecting it, because he knew the answer. And he knew the answer because it was 'yes'.  
  
I got all that from a lack of reaction?  
  
He drew in a deep, tentative breath. "Roger... if Mark has anything to tell you, he will. In his own time. You're his best friend, and I know he wouldn't be able to stand keeping something from you for very long. It would just eat away at him."  
  
Back in the loft, his words echoed in my head. I hated how people's words did that. I could never rid myself of them, no matter how hard I tried. No matter how loudly I played my guitar, or how many pillows I hurled across the room.  
  
*It would just eat away at him...*  
  
But it *was* eating away at him.  
  
My pitiful attempt at dinner that night only shattered my hope that the day wouldn't get any worse. Who the hell came up with the idea for the toaster, anyway?! You push the button one time, and all you get is warm bread. You push it twice and you get charcoal. I finally shoved both slices down the garbage disposal, angrily chopped up an apple, and sat on the counter.  
  
The phone rang, and my mind went only one place: Mimi.  
  
I reached for it frantically—this was no time to screen—and hurried to swallow my last chunk of apple. "Hmph—" Choking on the peel now. "Yeah?"  
  
"Roger?"  
  
My heart began the descent back to its normal pace. "Hey, Mark."  
  
"Hey." Silence. Was he expecting more? An update? Information on Mimi? Well, he'd be waiting a long time. "I can't find one of my tapes," he announced finally. "Can you see if it's in my room?"  
  
"Yeah, hang on." I dragged our insanely long phone cord back to his room and looked around helplessly. If I found anything in this godforsaken mess, it would be a miracle. "Um..."  
  
"It's probably on the chair," he offered.  
  
...And so were three pairs of pants, a book, and a lamp. I relocated these items to the bed and pulled a video out from underneath. "It says 'June 17th', is that it?"  
  
He sighed. "Yeah. Thanks. I'll just get it tonight."  
  
"Okay."  
  
And after that, we hung up, and I would have left his room and retreated to my own and taken out my latest frustrations on my guitar. The sounds would have pulsated through the walls and annoyed the neighbors, but I would have felt better. And then I would have curled up on my bed and stared up at that photograph of Mimi and me, and I would have hated myself for being the reason she wasn't here right now.  
  
But I didn't leave his room, and I didn't touch my guitar.  
  
I sat on his bed, aimlessly sorting through some unlabeled tapes. As I reached the bottom of the pile, however, a label began to pop up here and there, mostly in code or abbreviation, until a clearly marked one on the bottom succeeded in holding my attention:  
  
'M's b-day.'  
  
M... Mark? Maureen? No... Mimi was the only one who'd had a birthday in the last six months. January third. Her twenty-first. God, she was so young.  
  
January third was a bleak day in Santa Fe. I couldn't forget it—it was her birthday, after all, and it also happened to be the night I first conceived the opening notes to my song. With nothing on which to bring them to life, I scribbled them down on a spare sheet of paper, and fell asleep listening to it play over and over in my mind.  
  
Kind of like those voices I could never get out of my head.  
  
Securing a comfortable spot on the living room floor, I pushed the tape into the VCR and pressed Play.  
  
An unsteady shot appeared on screen as someone attempted to adjust the zoom lens. "January third, ten thirty a.m.," a voice recited.  
  
"You're filming the wall?" Mimi's voice asked, amused and off-camera.  
  
"Well, you won't let me film you," Mark whined.  
  
"I just woke up!"  
  
"You look beautiful." The camera panned abruptly around the room and landed on Mimi, who was sitting in bed, hair sticking up every which way, wearing a big white t-shirt and reading the newspaper. "Happy birthday," Mark added.  
  
Her eyes shot upward to look into the camera, and her jaw dropped. "You suck!" she declared, throwing the newspaper at the camera and darting under the covers. One of her unmistakable fits of giggles followed, and the tape cut to a snowy nothingness.  
  
A pang of jealousy shot through me. He'd been there, on that day. He got to tell her 'Happy Birthday' and plan a party for her and have a newspaper fight with her that morning. She'd been the subject of his incessant filming, most likely not just all day, but every day for six months. She was the one who got to tell him to get the damn camera out of her face. And she was the one who got to sit there for hours and watch him splice stuff together and never get bored.  
  
It was pathetic, really—I couldn't even decide which one of them I envied more.  
  
The film cut to a raucous game of Twister, being held on the living room floor of the loft. The atmosphere was much more festive now, and the time on the bottom left corner of the screen read "9:12 p.m." On the Twister mat were Mark, Maureen, and Joanne, and the feeling of sincere laughter, unfamiliar as of late, came over me.  
  
Maureen, who appeared tangled in some kind of backward arch, desperate to keep her right hand on red, felt the need to make an announcement to the camera. "You know," she began, "the rumor is, the people who win this game are the ones who are really great in bed."  
  
Mark slipped from a green circle and blushed. "Maureen!"  
  
Mark and Joanne began spouting obscenities back and forth, but Maureen couldn't have possibly looked more pleased with herself. The camera panned across the living room to Collins, who retained possession of that spinner thing, and Mimi, who was sitting on his lap and watching the game with great amusement.  
  
"Left hand yellow!" she announced gleefully.  
  
Collins glanced at the board. "That's not what it—" But Mimi shushed him, fighting off laughter.  
  
With this attempt, and a final, choice trivia fact from Maureen, Mark finally burst into hysterics and lost his balance, toppling over onto Joanne. Maureen spent the next ten minutes feeling quite proud of herself and offering sexual favors to everyone in the room to prove her point.  
  
Mark gladly took over the burden of cameraman from Benny, who, as it turned out, had been filming the game. I forced myself to ignore his presence, which proved not as difficult as I would have thought, as he spent most of his time in the corner, quietly sipping his drink with an occasional smile or comment, and doing his best to keep Mimi from getting too plastered. But, as Maureen argued, refilling everyone's glass, it was her birthday. Her twenty-first. Not to get plastered would be a crime.  
  
When the time for cake rolled around, Mimi settled herself at the table between Maureen and Joanne, and Mark remained across the room, capturing the moments on film. Mimi and Maureen kept stealing lumps of icing off the top of the cake, until Joanne whacked them with a napkin.  
  
"I would like to make a toast," Joanne announced as she rose from her seat, tapping a plastic spork on her Styrofoam cup. "To our family," she began fondly, smiling at everyone in the room. "And to those who can't be here tonight."  
  
Although this seemed to me to be an appropriate stopping place, she went on, now oblivious to the two girls beside her, who had found something to laugh at, and were attempting to do so as inconspicuously as possible. Mark, who had managed to remain nearly forgotten behind the camera, zoomed in on Mimi until the rest of the room was shut out.  
  
She caught his eye through the lens and smiled. That captivating little grin I had fallen in love with... and if I tried hard enough, I could almost imagine it was me she'd been smiling at. But I knew it wasn't.  
  
She shot the camera a wink, and her lips silently formed the words, 'I love you.'  
  
The television went black.  
  
My eyes scanned the room skeptically. The electricity couldn't have gone off—the lamp by the couch was still lit. A slight shuffle behind me snapped me into awareness, and I spun around.  
  
Mark was standing inside the front door, holding the TV remote.  
  
I scrambled to my feet, feeling only slightly less powerless. "Uh... hey." He glanced from me to the television and back again, hoping for an explanation from at least one of us. "I just... I didn't mean to—"  
  
"What are you doing?" he asked, and for a moment I allowed myself to be deceived by the softness of his voice—maybe he wasn't enraged, after all.  
  
"I just found this in—"  
  
"In my room, under nine other tapes and two pillows?"  
  
Well... technically yes. "Look, Mark, I wasn't—"  
  
His eyes narrowed behind his glasses, ruling out any possibility of being able to read what was inside them. "Not once," he began slowly, deliberately, "while you were gone, did I even set foot in your room."  
  
"Oh, don't make it sound so noble," I retorted. "The only reason you stayed out of there was because it was too painful—it just reminded you of the fact that I was gone."  
  
"Don't flatter yourself."  
  
I sighed. "Mark..."  
  
He swept across the room, snatching the tape out of the VCR in one swift, furious motion, and held it protectively under his arm. "Just leave my stuff alone."  
  
I watched helplessly as he headed for his room, unstoppable, unreachable. "I didn't make her leave, Mark! You can't take this out on me, it's not like I wanted her to go—I don't know why she left, okay?!"  
  
"Well, *I* do!"  
  
He watched me from the wall, one hand on his doorknob, and the other wrapped firmly around his tape, as we both grasped for some way to continue after such an admission  
  
"Mark..."  
  
Bad choice. Bad, bad choice.  
  
"Don't, Roger."  
  
He disappeared into his room and slammed the door. It was a relief only in that I was forced to claim defeat—it was easier than fighting.  
  
But this wasn't right. Why should I let it end like this? Why should I let him get away with that? I deserved an explanation, and so did he. Maybe I could offer one if I heard his first. A convenient excuse, I knew, but as of now, my only hope.  
  
Upon reaching his room, I tapped gently near the doorframe. No response. Well, what had I expected?  
  
"Mark, please. I'm sorry."  
  
If it was possible for the apartment to grow even more soundless, it did.  
  
"Can't we just talk about this?"  
  
Apparently not.  
  
"Jesus, Mark, just open the fucking door, you're acting like a baby!"  
  
I tried the handle, which was firmly locked—as if that could stop me. I grabbed one of those twist-ties that we used for garbage bags and stuffed it into the little hole in the doorknob. A few muttered curses later, I shoved the door open.  
  
He was perched on the edge of his bed, facing away from me. His delicate frame was hunched over a photograph that he clutched in his hands. On closer inspection, I saw that it was a picture from Christmas—obviously this past Christmas, the one for which I had been noticeably absent.  
  
It hurt... to think that the mental place he went to when distressed was one I had no part in.  
  
As I approached him cautiously, it became evident that he'd been crying.  
  
The photo was of our little family—to perfectly honest, *their* little family, by this point—seated around the Christmas tree. Maureen had her arms around Joanne, but held two fingers in the shape of a V over Mark's head. Mark had one arm around Collins' shoulders, and the other was holding Mimi's hand.  
  
I sat down next to him, feeling as though I owed an apology to the photograph as much as I did to him. And, not entirely concerned with appropriateness at this point, I put my arms around him and remained silent.  
  
He rested his head on my shoulder, lacking the energy to fight me off, or to force back any more tears.  
  
"You're not the only one who's lost her," he told me.  
  
I found it difficult to find my voice, and when I did, it was scarcely discernible.  
  
"I know." 


	6. 

A/N: 05-09-02—*looks at outline for ch. 6*... Ahh, yes, this should be fun. The quintessential WDYL (Why Did You Leave?) fight that is vital to any M/R- centered fic. ;) And you guys all kick ass, incidentally—keep reviewing! Unless of course you want me to stop writing. In which case, don't flame me, just keep quiet and I'll get the hint. :P  
  
I'm in shock, I just got 100 on an evil math test. GO ME!!! The excitement isn't lasting though, I'm slightly nervous about my dance performance this weekend. (It's in the 11th Street lot if anyone wishes to attend. ;) Wish me luck.  
  
NYTW Quote-of-the-Week: "Hello, I'm a dyke!" ~Maureen  
  
Disclaimer: These characters belong to J.L., but he has been kind enough to share them with the general public, and that's why we have Rentfic. (Sorry, that's as witty as I can manage tonight.)  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
  
  
6. [Mark]  
  
  
  
"May 10th, eleven a.m., Eastern... etc., etc., you know the drill."  
  
Who was I speaking to, anyway?  
  
"It's been three weeks." The rhythmic, lulling hum of the camera took over for my unusually quiet voice as I groped for an appropriate narrative. "I don't know where she is."  
  
I zoomed in on the assortment of belongings piled in precarious stacks and misshapen pyramids on her dresser, but my hand slipped and the beauty of the shot was lost as the camera's focus dove downward, filming the floor for a split second. My heart wasn't in it today. Could anyone blame me?  
  
"This is her makeup purse," I idly informed any future viewers. "Well, it's more like a duffel bag. I could fit my whole wardrobe in there. Hell, *I* could fit in there."  
  
I lost my focus again, accidentally hitting the power switch. The camera grew silent, and my view through the lens turned black. I didn't bother to turn it back on, but instead slumped down against the side of her bed, allowing sharp, bitter tears to blur my vision, and willing my voice to form one last, unheard cry, as though the spirit she had left behind in her apartment might answer (or at the very least, comfort) me.  
  
"I miss you so much."  
  
Why had everyone I loved ended up leaving me?  
  
My father, when I was nine. I'm not ever sure why I worshipped him as long as I did. He took me to a carnival because my mother told him he didn't spend enough time with me. He yelled at me when I got cotton candy on the seat of his BMW. Three days later, he was gone.  
  
Maureen... no explanation necessary.  
  
Although it wasn't quite the humiliating experience one might imagine. I felt as bad for her as I did for me... then again, that was my nature. She was trembling when she sat me down on the couch and told me she was in love with someone else. A woman. She started crying as soon as she the full intensity of the confession hit her. She said I didn't deserve this. That she never meant for it to happen. And that she was so, so sorry, because she knew how much I'd already been hurt. It was the first time I'd seen her so defenseless. And probably the last.  
  
Roger... almost seven months ago. I'd come to the city, all alone and scared to death, and he'd taken me in and looked after me. And seven months ago he took off... leaving me to take care of someone in return.  
  
And now Mimi. My love. I had no right to be with her, or to love her the way I did, but I didn't care. And now she had vanished into thin air. I didn't know if she was still alive. I didn't know if she was in a warm, secure place somewhere... but something told me she wasn't. *I* was supposed to be that warm, secure place. She always told me I made her feel completely safe. Maybe she didn't really mean it. Maybe I was kidding myself... again.  
  
I always suspected I needed the people I loved more than they needed me.  
  
I gathered myself together and returned upstairs to the loft. Since that night a week ago, when I came home to find him watching my film, I had been working a little less, and Roger and I had been speaking a little more. A little here and a little there, however, didn't seem to make much of a difference. But I knew he was trying. And that's more than I could say for myself.  
  
He looked up from his guitar when I walked in. "Hey." I nodded in reply. "Where have you been?"  
  
"Just went for a walk." I don't know what made me think he'd buy the claim that I'd been walking since four o'clock that morning. In actuality, at four o'clock that morning, I'd crawled out of my room, escaped downstairs to Mimi's apartment, and curled up in her bed.  
  
"For seven hours?"  
  
"Yes!" I snapped. "God, you're acting like my mother."  
  
He placed his guitar gently on the floor beside him, and I knew that this gesture signaled his full attention—and, generally, the start of a completely unnecessary blow-up. "I'm sorry."  
  
Maybe I didn't know him as well as I thought.  
  
"I..." he went on uncertainly. "I just wish you'd tell me where you're going, I was worried."  
  
"This coming from the person who disappeared for six months without a trace." He was silent this time, and I knew my words had gone past the appropriate line and into completely uncalled for. "I'm sorry."  
  
"I told you where I was going."  
  
"A lot of good that did!" I retorted. "Do you even have a clue what it did to us? You just left me to take care of her, neither of us even knew why you were gone. Every night she would ask why. 'Why did he leave, Mark? Didn't he know I loved him?'"  
  
And now I was forgetting what my point was, but it certainly felt a lot better to yell at an actual person instead of a bench in some deserted corner of Central Park.  
  
"Mark... she may look helpless, but she's a big girl. She didn't need anyone to take care of her."  
  
"Yes, she did," I insisted, trying harder to convince myself than him. Of course she needed me. She had to. I wanted her to. And I wasn't going to let him take that away from me. I hadn't meant it as a complaint—I loved taking care of her. I missed it so much it was almost physically painful to think about.  
  
"Fine," Roger answered quietly. "If you two need each other so much, why don't you run off together? Everything seemed to be just peachy before I came back! I guess this is all my fault then, isn't it?!"  
  
So many retorts and curses and comebacks sprang to my lips, but remained trapped there, fighting violently to escape. I wouldn't let them. I was learning quickly, with grave disappointment, that yelling at him didn't make me feel much better, after all.  
  
I grabbed my key, stuffed it in my jacket pocket, and started towards the door.  
  
"That's great, Mark. Just run away. That'll solve everything."  
  
"You seemed to think it would."  
  
"I came back!"  
  
"Well, you shouldn't have!!"  
  
And without allowing myself time enough to regret these words, I marched out, sent the door slamming back to its frame with a trembling resonation, and sprinted down the stairs.  
  
As I sat on a warm, bumpy bench, waiting for the subway, I wondered where exactly I was supposed to be heading. I couldn't stay in the neighborhood. Roger would find me, and somehow I would crumble and allow him to apologize and pretend everything was all right, when it wasn't, and could never be. Collins would be my obvious choice, except he was somewhat in the middle of teaching a class at the moment.  
  
I'm not sure what had happened between Maureen and Joanne and us in the last three weeks. Every time I tried to call them, they were out, or sounded rushed or distant or worried or... God, I don't even know. They probably blamed me for this. And they had every right to. Roger may have been the one who came back and shocked the hell out of everyone, but I was the one who'd been messing around with his girlfriend for a good third of the year. If anyone had driven her away, it was me. Even my own denial wasn't strong enough to challenge that.  
  
I didn't care. If I was desperate, they would understand. They wouldn't turn me away.  
  
I rapped lightly on their door. Joanne, I knew, would be at work. Convenient. Now I would only have to confront one of them... albeit the more difficult one, but still.  
  
The diva appeared in the doorway, purple/red/blue hair pulled back into a loose braid, sporting her usual skintight t-shirt and favorite pair of faded jeans.  
  
"Mark...!"  
  
"Hey," I greeted, my whole self noticeably expressionless.  
  
"Wow, um..." she shuffled her feet nervously. "I didn't know you were going to—"  
  
"Yeah, sorry. Can I come in?"  
  
She shook her head, almost reluctantly. "Honey, this really isn't a good time..."  
  
"It never is," I noted. "You're going to have to stop avoiding me, because I really can't stay in the loft right now and I have nowhere else to go."  
  
She put a hand on my shoulder as I started to step forward, and I halted. "Marky... I really don't think you should be here."  
  
"Why not?!"  
  
As I spoke, a small figure stepped slowly into view behind Maureen. Maureen followed my eyes and turned towards this presence—realizing her attempts had been futile and no longer necessary, she turned back to me, delicately backing out of the way.  
  
Mimi...  
  
[A/N: I really should stop here because I love giving cliffhangers, but that would screw up my chapter-by-chapter outline. Sigh. :P]  
  
We exchanged a most dazed stare between some outrageously excessive ten feet of space. But this space narrowed considerably and rapidly—almost as a reflex, I took a step towards her, and she followed, and within seconds, we were in each other's arms.  
  
It wasn't an embrace of reuniting or joy or even shock. It was just magnetism. She was there, and I was there, and the longer we'd been separated, the closer we needed to be. I could have stayed there all afternoon if certain other factors weren't quite so involved.  
  
"Um..." That was Maureen. "I'm just going, to, uh..."  
  
Mimi and I pulled away, and I turned around to see Maureen gathering her coat and purse and making a beeline for the door.  
  
"Maureen..." She had already postponed her escape upon feeling the intensity of my bewildered stare, and finally turned to face me. "How long has she..."  
  
Her eyes widened, and then fell shut with sudden recognition. "Oh... Marky..."  
  
"Three weeks," Mimi squeaked in a tiny voice.  
  
"WHAT?!"  
  
No... no, no, no. I had been sick with worry and depression and loneliness and anger and... well, some more of all of that... for three entire weeks. And she'd been HERE? Scarcely miles away, right under my nose. And they'd known. They'd known...  
  
Maureen approached me, desperately apologetic, and placed her hand on my arm, which I shrugged off. "Honey, I'm so sorry," she pleaded. "She just couldn't deal with everything, and she asked us not to—"  
  
"The whole time," my voice, independent of my own will but simply desperate to verbalize my thoughts, dully found its way into the air.  
  
Another hand was suddenly on my arm, but this one I couldn't bear to escape from. "Mark, baby, please," Mimi entreated softly. "Don't be mad at her. It's my fault. I made them promise not to tell you."  
  
"Why... why, why would you do that?" I stammered, feeling less coherent by the second. "Do you have any idea how—"  
  
Maureen took my arm and dragged me across the room—which resulted in about three short steps. "Yes," she replied. "Yes, I know, I know how horrible it's been for you, and for Roger, and I'm sorry it had to be like this. But please don't hate me. I can't stand it when you're mad at me."  
  
As I eyed her warily, looking for more signs of deception or secrecy, I found only those electric blue eyes staring back at me, glistening with tears. I glanced at Mimi for guidance, and she nodded slowly. I knew I wasn't going to get out of this without giving in.  
  
"Fine," I mumbled, scuffing the toe of my shoe against the carpet. Maureen threw her arms around me and, for once, kept silent. Over her shoulder, I saw Mimi shooting a relieved smile in our direction. I tried to pull away, but Maureen refused to let me go, so I finally consented and hugged her back. "Um, yeah, I missed you too," I added. "And, um... Maureen, I can't breathe."  
  
She released me, swiping at tears with the back of her hand, and glanced between the two of us with a smile. "Right. Um... I'm just going to go, uh... surprise Joanne on her lunch break."  
  
"Lucky her," I remarked.  
  
Maureen rolled her eyes at me, but unable to let much of anything faze her at the moment, she planted a quick kiss on my lips and grabbed her car keys off the counter before turning to Mimi. "You okay?"  
  
Mimi nodded. "I'll be fine. Thanks."  
  
The drama queen pulled her into another one of those protective, airtight hugs, shot one last smile in my direction, and was out the door.  
  
My eyes turned back to the small figure standing in the middle of the living room, to find her that her gaze was already fixated on me. In the movies, this would be the part where we fell into each other's arms and suddenly found ourselves in the bedroom under a tangle of sheets. However... neither of us really lived in this apartment, for one. And, far more importantly, I was having a very hard time keeping my guilt in check.  
  
This was so much easier when Roger was gone. It seemed so permanent then; after awhile, I don't think either of us believed he was ever coming back. But here he was, and now this person standing in front of me appeared as nothing more than my best friend's girlfriend... whom I certainly had no right being alone with in this way.  
  
She didn't belong to Roger anymore, I told myself. Well, she never had. She didn't belong to anyone. Mimi was not something to be possessed. But he wasn't the one she said goodnight to anymore. She didn't fall asleep in his bed every night, or wake him up with a kiss on Saturday mornings, or go for walks with him in Central Park on Sunday afternoons.  
  
And... Roger wasn't here.  
  
And when I spotted that smile dancing on her lips, I was powerless to resist. We each took a step forward, and then another, and before I had time to react, she had leapt into my arms and covered my mouth with her own. I stumbled backwards into the wall, but somehow managed to carry her over to the couch and set her down, where we both collapsed amongst a heap of pillows.  
  
It was some moments later before I emerged from the intoxicating trance brought on by that kiss, and slowly regained consciousness, one sense at a time. The quiet clicking of a distant, unseen clock. The feel of those bouncing curls of hair between my fingers. The scent of strawberry vanilla shampoo that I recognized as Maureen's. That faint taste of coconut and almond from Mimi's favorite lipstick. And, as I opened my eyes... the tearful gaze that stared back at me.  
  
"Please don't cry," I begged, dropping a kiss on the tip of her nose. "Do you want me to leave?"  
  
She shook her head, clutching fistfuls of my shirt in her hands. "No, don't go anywhere."  
  
And so I stayed, and we watched each other for what felt like a very long, albeit pleasant, time, until my own questions and sub-questions and only- half-related questions became too much, and I simply had to know. "Why did you leave?"  
  
I watched as a tear slid unevenly down her cheek, but I caught it before it dropped, and kissed it away.  
  
"I'm so sorry..." she breathed. "I never meant—"  
  
"I just want to know why."  
  
She sat up, and I allowed an inward sigh to escape. Our beautiful, untarnished moment of reunion was over.  
  
"I couldn't..." she started. "I just knew I wouldn't be able to deal with it. Somehow... I knew, if I stayed, I'd end up losing both of you."  
  
"Ah." I stared at a couch pillow in confusion. "So... by running away, that kept you from losing either of us?"  
  
She shot me The Look, and I recoiled like a puppy who'd just been whacked with a newspaper. It was very multi-purpose, that Look was; it was the Don't-Be-A-Smartass look, the I-Know-What-You're-Thinking-So-Don't look, and the I'm-Going-To-Pretend-You-Didn't-Say-That look. Usually it didn't matter what it was used for—its intent was always fulfilled.  
  
"I just..." I attempted to modify, "I mean, we... I... I barely survived without you."  
  
She stared at my pillow guiltily, which made me feel even worse. I tried to convince myself I was angry with her, but I knew I could never be... and the last thing I wanted to do was make her feel even more guilty.  
  
"I thought you two would have at least had the sense to look out for each other," she noted.  
  
I sprung off the couch, pacing the small space of floor. "How could we?" I demanded. "I hated him for coming back, which I shouldn't have... and he hated me because I knew why you left and wouldn't tell him."  
  
Her eyes met mine. "You didn't tell him about us?"  
  
"No!"  
  
"Oh, God, Mark..." she groaned, falling onto another convenient, stray pillow. I started to say something else, but she beat me to it. "I thought this would at least give him some time to get used to the idea... I can't believe you didn't tell him."  
  
"You try it!" I offered. "In case you haven't noticed, Roger isn't the easiest person to talk to. And it's not fair that I should have to tell him by myself—it takes two to tango, you know. And not to mention—"  
  
I wasn't interrupted (although probably should have been), but stopped abruptly on my own, realizing what I was about to say should not be blurted out lightly, unless I was ready for an answer that could cost me everything.  
  
"What?" she prompted softly.  
  
"Are you still in love with him?"  
  
Silence. Always the worst response.  
  
I refused to look at her, but instead reached for my coat. I then realized I was still wearing it, and, now not only heartbroken but embarrassed, I started for the door. "I should have known."  
  
"Mark!" she leapt off the couch and positioned herself between the door and me, and considering my hand was on the doorknob, there wasn't much space.  
  
"It's all right," I lied, now wanting nothing more than to rid myself of her presence, a blatant, cruel reminder of the one thing I wanted more than anything but couldn't have. "I understand."  
  
Tears sprang to her eyes again, unforeseen. "I'm in love with you," she said simply, as if this were the most regular and obvious fact in the world. "Only you."  
  
I watched her blankly, wondering how to respond to such words as I'd never heard before... and certainly with none of the conviction they carried now. This was not fair. Love, once found, was supposed to be perfect. There weren't supposed to be ex-girlfriends-turned-lesbians who had forever shattered your trust. There weren't supposed to be additional boyfriends who happened to be clueless of the affair. There wasn't supposed to be no heat or electricity and a year's worth of rent and rehab and life threatening diseases and tears...  
  
No tears. We'd had enough.  
  
"I hate fighting with you," I whispered.  
  
"I know."  
  
"You know I love you too."  
  
A tiny smile. "I know."  
  
I kissed her softly. "Will you come home with me?"  
  
She sighed, shaking her head apologetically. But, powerless as I was, I let myself be dragged back to the couch for an explanation. "I can't. Not yet."  
  
Frankly, I'd been expecting a little more. "Can I just tell him you're here?" She started to protest, but I resolved that I was going to get my way at least once. "Mimi, he's worried sick. He's so confused, he doesn't understand, he misses you so much..."  
  
"Okay," she consented, softening her voice. "Okay." She reached over, straightening my shirt collar and smoothing down my ever-rebellious hair. "You should go."  
  
"No," I whined stubbornly,  
  
A grin spread across her lips. "Yes. Maureen will be back soon, and we're going to a movie."  
  
I brushed a curl out of her eyes. "Don't leave me for another woman, 'kay?"  
  
For the first time in three weeks, I was presented with that glowing, all- over smile that seemed to illuminate even the darkest rooms. "I won't," she assured me. "Same goes. You and Roger have always been too close for my peace of mind."  
  
"Oh, shut up!"  
  
[A/N: /tribute to classic slash fics ;)]  
  
She winked at me, brushing her lips against mine briefly before pulling us both off the couch. "I love you. Now go."  
  
"Fine," I pouted. "I'll be back."  
  
"You'd better."  
  
I leaned in for an innocent goodbye kiss, which turned into several longer kisses, which eventually landed us back on the couch, before we both came to our senses and I reluctantly rebuttoned my shirt and left the apartment. The usual longing inside me was now accented with a seemingly interminable grin across my face, for which I received several odd looks on the subway.  
  
I didn't mind one bit. 


	7. 

A/N: 05-13-02—Hello, all. I'm sure by now you've learned that I love dragging things out, but I do have Major Plans for the next chapter, so bear with me, again. ;) As always, reviews are encouraged and welcome. And adored. And vital, dammit! :P *looks around at everyone who's staring* Ahem... uh... yeah. As for my little slash tribute you guys seemed to enjoy... would you all be happy if I wrote a real tribute someday? LOL. I'm a closet M/R fanatic, actually—it's my one guilty pleasure. ;) So that may accidentally manifest itself in a scene here and there. Oops. :P  
  
Aella — Re: Maureen—Thanks, I love writing her, she probably comes easier to me than anyone else. One of these days I'll give her a story all to herself. :)  
  
NYTW Quote-of-the-Week: "Right brain, how do I find the right brain? I lost my map!" ~Roger  
  
Disclaimer: Once again, I am only renting these characters. Trying to work out a lease-to-own deal, but the owner seems reluctant.  
  
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7. [Roger]  
  
  
  
I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do when he stormed out. Mark never stormed out. Mark was the one who sat in the corner of the room with his camera while I abandoned him in the middle of an argument. It was our pattern. It worked for us.  
  
Of course, I was kidding myself. It never solved anything. But we liked to think it did. And that, in itself, surely solved something.  
  
I always wondered what he did all that time after I stormed out, because usually when I'd come back to the loft, after cooling off a bit, he'd be in the exact same spot with his camera, looking only slightly less forlorn than he had when I'd left. My returning to the loft was my way of apologizing. That timid half-smile, before turning back to his camera, was his. Although in all honesty, he shouldn't have had to apologize. I knew ninety percent of the time, it wasn't his fault at all.  
  
But now, I was stuck alone in a tiny apartment with no place to go and nothing to take my anger out on.  
  
And he knew why she left.  
  
I couldn't get over that. It was starting to feel like he knew my girlfriend better than I did. Although... I knew I was taking a liberty by still placing that claim on her. In all likelihood, she didn't want anything to do with me. Why else would she have gone? And I couldn't blame her. She had every right to leave. She owed me nothing. Leaving had been my mistake, and I was paying for it.  
  
But that didn't make it any easier.  
  
After at least half an hour of pacing back and forth in the living room, I gave up. I don't know how he did it. How he could sit here quietly for an hour or two hours or three until I came back. How he could keep everything inside like that. I had to get out of there.  
  
As I strode down the street, I did my best to convince myself that I wasn't looking for him; I was just walking around furiously like I always did. I was so obsessed with forgetting about him that I didn't even realize it when my eyes began darting down street corners and into random windows of cafés and restaurants, naively assuming he would have stayed in the neighborhood. He probably knew I'd go looking for him. *I* should have known I'd go looking for him.  
  
At last, I gave up my own pretense and headed to all the places we usually hung out... which came to a rather diminutive sum. There was the loft, and the café, and... well, the loft some more. My huge lack of success only made me more resentful, and I finally surrendered and stomped back up three flights of stairs to our home.  
  
Only to find that I had forgotten my key.  
  
Well, fuck.  
  
As if everything else wasn't bad enough, now he'd get to see firsthand just how terrible I was at role reversal.  
  
As I sat slumped against the door, I was just picturing how much more embarrassed I would be by the time he came back, when there was a shuffling on a flight of stairs below. Soon his head came into view, followed by the rest of him, and then it all disappeared in a blink as he tripped on the top stair and stumbled over onto our neighbor's doorstep.  
  
I stifled a chuckle. "You okay?"  
  
His head shot up, but the rest of him only bothered crawling to a seated position. "What are you doing here?"  
  
"I, um..." I could do this. He never had to know. "I just thought I'd... wait out here for you." Oh, yes, that sounds *much* better.  
  
The usual half-smile that signaled reconciliation had far surpassed what I was used to, and now took on the appearance of a full-fledged, highly amused smirk. "You locked yourself out."  
  
"Er... yeah."  
  
"You're really bad at this."  
  
"I know."  
  
A pause. "You can storm out next time."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
He proceeded to bunch up his coat and make a small pillow for himself on the floor as he sat down across from me. "I, um..." he began, pushing his glasses up on his nose. "I'm sorry about, uh..."  
  
"Yeah, me too."  
  
All right, this sucked. Having broken our usual pattern, apparently the situation now required actual apologies.  
  
He shifted positions on his coat. "Mimi's staying with Maureen and Joanne."  
  
I can only imagine how stupid I must have looked, sitting there with that stark, gawking expression on my face, unable to move or respond, other than, "What?"  
  
"Yeah, for three weeks."  
  
"WHAT?"  
  
"I know."  
  
"And you're just telling me NOW?"  
  
"I just found out!"  
  
I hated myself for even wondering whether or not I should believe him. Of course I should believe him. No matter how many times I stormed out or yelled at him, he was still my best friend, and he had no reason to lie to me. Then again, I wouldn't have thought Mimi had any reason to lie to me either. Or to Mark. Obviously, what did I know?  
  
"Is she okay?" I asked.  
  
"Um... yeah," he mumbled unconvincingly, playing with the zipper on his coat. "She's fine."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"I said she's fine." I paid little attention to anything but my own incessant thoughts, until he gathered his coat from underneath him, climbed to his feet and pulled out a house key.  
  
"Well, wait!" I yanked on a sleeve of his coat until he was forced back to a seated position... which didn't take much, considering our varied degrees of physical strength. "Can I go see her?"  
  
He shrugged. "I'm not your mother, you don't need my permission."  
  
Why, why did he do this? This is what made me want to throw things, this is what kept that tiny little part of me alive, the part that wanted to drive right back to Santa Fe and stay there. Every time the conversation turned to Mimi... or him... or me, or us, or anything involving our lives, he'd shut down. He'd tune out, he'd push me away, he'd...  
  
"Mark..." I wasn't sure where I was going with this, but I knew it couldn't be any worse than where we already were. "Did she... say anything to you?"  
  
"No, Roge, we just sat in silence the whole time I was there."  
  
I had to resist the urge to shoot him a Look. "I just feel like you know her better than I do now."  
  
"I... I'm sorry."  
  
The two stammered words struck the silence with such conviction, such sincerity... so obviously apologizing for much more than something that wasn't even his fault in the first place. I wasn't asking for an apology. It wasn't a crime. So she'd been his best friend for six months while I was away. I couldn't hold that against them. I wasn't quite that possessive.  
  
"It's not your fault," I assured him, but his eyes lost none of the tension they'd been carrying, and the fact that there was nothing I could do to make this easier for either of us only frustrated me further. "I just thought... maybe you'd know whether or not I still have a chance with her."  
  
He scrambled to his feet and found the key again, stuffing it into the doorknob. "I can't answer that," he confessed quietly. "You should go see her."  
  
I stood up as well. "But... Mark, I don't know what to say to her," I whined. "You have to tell me what to do."  
  
Stopping one last time to tend to my insecurities, he pushed open the door but thoughtfully remained planted in the hall beside me. "Do you love her?"  
  
"Well... yeah. Of course."  
  
"Then..." His voice trailed off to near-nothingness as he averted his gaze to the floor. "You should tell her that."  
  
Although I knew he was right, he certainly didn't sound very persuasive. But I shrugged it off, because nothing mattered right now. Nothing mattered except that she was alive, and she was fine, and she was only miles away and if I left now, it would take only minutes before she would be in my arms again.  
  
"I'll be back," I blurted as an afterthought, already halfway down the first set of stairs, having left him standing in the doorway with his jacket and key. After the second flight, I heard our front door click to a close.  
  
It didn't occur to me until I parked my car outside Maureen and Joanne's building, that I should be furious with them both. They kept her here, all this time, without breathing a word of it. They'd lied to us... in keeping with Mimi's wishes, I assumed, but that hadn't made it any easier. I certainly couldn't be angry with Mimi, so they were next up in line. Unfortunately, I was pretty sure Mark had already dealt out a fair share of reproach to both of them.  
  
And also, neither of their cars was anywhere in sight. How convenient.  
  
Their door swung open in response to my tentative knock, and there she stood. As radiant as ever, and... not at all surprised to see me.  
  
A nervous grin was all that altered her expression. "Hey."  
  
"Hey."  
  
This wasn't exactly how I'd imagined it.  
  
On second thought, I should be used to that by now.  
  
"Did you know I was coming over?"  
  
She shrugged, and the sweater she was wearing, which was far too big on her, slipped off one shoulder. I'd missed how most of her clothes did that. She was such a tiny little thing. I watched, entranced simply to be alone with her again, as she absent-mindedly pushed it back up on her shoulder and stepped aside. "I just figured Mark would have told you..."  
  
I nodded and, interpreting the now fully open door as an invitation, walked inside. I'd certainly been to the apartment before, but never under such... well, restricting... circumstances. Usually Mark and I would show up at the door, be quickly greeted by either Maureen or Joanne, who would then promptly return to the argument they'd been having with the other.  
  
So here was something else I could add to my list of things that would probably never be the same again.  
  
I turned back to her, suddenly aware of how unproductive it was of me to stare at various pieces of furniture. "I was so worried about you..." I began.  
  
"I know." Her eyes fell. "I'm sorry."  
  
She sounded just like Mark had when he'd said it less than an hour ago.  
  
"No, *I'm* sorry." I was at her side in an instant, gently resting my hand on her arm, disposed to do anything that might keep her from crying. "I don't know what I did to make you leave, but whatever it is, I'm sorry."  
  
She shook her head firmly, but still refusing to look into my eyes. As a gesture of compensation, she cradled my other hand in both of hers. "You didn't do anything. It's my fault, I just..."  
  
I couldn't resist a smile. "You're giving me the 'It's not you, it's me' speech?"  
  
"Yes." She laughed a small, brief laugh, her eyes never leaving the floor. "No. I don't know. I'm sorry—"  
  
"God, would you stop saying that?" Not fully aware of or concerned with what I was doing, I placed a finger under her chin until she gave up, lifted her head, and allowed her eyes to meet mine. "To be honest... I was afraid to come over," I confessed, now realizing she had been right the first time in keeping our gazes apart. It was harder to say this when I was looking at her. "I didn't know what to say to you, so I asked Mark, and he asked if I loved you, and I said yes, and he said I should tell you that, and...'  
  
...And now I was rambling.  
  
She'd looked away at the mention of his name. "He said that?"  
  
I nodded, inching closer. "I think he believes we still have a chance. And... I believe it too."  
  
As good as these words had sounded in my head, and even as acceptable as they had seemed once they left my mouth, it was soon obvious they'd been a very wrong choice. Tears welled up in her eyes and she crossed the room in a flash. Everything in my head, everything that had made so much sense only seconds ago, suddenly fell apart. My inspiration had fled across the room right along with her.  
  
When I turned around, she was facing away from me, staring aimlessly out a window. My instincts insisted I go to her, but I was no longer listening to my instincts. They'd gotten me in enough trouble already.  
  
And so I stayed, glued to that spot by the door. "Just tell me what to do," I pleaded, beyond desperation. "Tell me how to fix this."  
  
She spun around. "No. You can't just fix this. You don't even know what's broken."  
  
"Then tell me."  
  
Back to the window. "I can't."  
  
"Then just tell me why you left."  
  
"You first."  
  
Tell me you didn't see that coming a mile away.  
  
Damn it.  
  
I needed a window. Why couldn't I have a window to stare out aimlessly, too? I was forced to face her, forced to be the one with any power over the situation. Forced to fix this, despite her claim that repair was impossible unless I knew what was broken. Well, that wasn't always true. Sometimes you just have to jump in and start playing around. Then, if you're lucky, you might find out what's broken. And the rest of the time... everything turns out even more fucked up than it was.  
  
Now all I had to do was figure out how to avoid the latter.  
  
I took a step towards her, and another, and then the space between us was far behind, and I placed my hands on her shoulders. "I'm sorry," I said simply.  
  
I immediately felt that old, once-so-familiar gesture, where she leaned back against me, nuzzling her head just beneath my chin. We fit together so perfectly that way, so much that when we would pull apart, I felt like part of me was detached. It was almost impossible, in that moment, to imagine anything had ever happened to take us away from each other.  
  
Almost.  
  
"Can we just not do this?" she asked softly, finally turning to face me. "Can we just forget about this right now?"  
  
The last thing I wanted to do was make this any worse, so I had no choice but to consent. "If that's what you want."  
  
Maybe it was my imagination, but it looked like a little grin was forming across her lips. "It is."  
  
I took her hands and led her out to the middle of the room, but couldn't go any further before remembering the one thing I'd thought about the entire drive from Santa Fe. That one thing that had so quickly lost all significance over the last three weeks. But now, seeing her, being with her... suddenly it meant something again.  
  
"Hey," I started, finding myself suddenly shy. "There's, uh, something I want you to hear." She looked at me expectantly. "I mean... when I have my guitar with me."  
  
A real grin this time, and more glowing than ever. "You found your song."  
  
I smiled back. "Yeah."  
  
I wasn't expecting it, but she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around my neck. But it was so far beyond a hug, or even an embrace. They way she held me... it was so fragile. So... apologetic. So final. As though it were the last time we would ever be this intimate.  
  
Which, of course, was when Maureen marched through the front door, caught sight of us, and stared shamelessly.  
  
By the time I turned towards her, she was inspecting me as if I had two heads. "Nice to see you too," I commented, grinning.  
  
"I—I'm sorry," was as much as she could manage, and for Maureen, that was frightening. An apology *and* a sentence under twenty words, all in one shot. "I just wasn't expecting..."  
  
Mimi turned back to me. "We're going to a movie."  
  
"Oh." I released her, straightening my coat.  
  
She squeezed my hand. "I'll come see you tonight, okay?" I nodded, and she shot me a wink. "I want to hear that song."  
  
Our eyes locked until she disappeared out the front door, followed by Maureen, who had apparently been rendered mute. (Ah, at last all my prayers had paid off.) She watched me too, though, managing only a weak, confused smile before closing the door behind her.  
  
It wasn't long before I found myself climbing the stairs back to our loft, and I spotted a small piece of paper stuck to the front door. Near the top, a key had been taped to the note, which read:  
  
'Went to work for a bit. Thought you might need this. Unless you'd rather wait outside for me. :) –M'  
  
I couldn't help but smile. He just thought he was so cute, didn't he? Never mind the fact that we did live in New York, and taping your house key to your front door is about the equivalent of sticking a giant 'Intruders Welcome' sign out in the front yard.  
  
What a nut.  
  
Out of habit, I dropped my coat on a chair and pressed Play on the answering machine. What came next all but broke my brief, lighthearted mood. I wouldn't have ever thought Mimi's voice could even have that effect... but her words very quickly proved me wrong.  
  
"Mark... it's me. Call me, I need to talk to you." 


	8. 

A/N: 05-18-02—Well, here it is. The chapter I've dreaded writing. The last several paragraphs are actually my second attempt to end this chapter. Anyone wishing to see my disastrous first attempt, written today in English class in a whirlwind of consciousness, can email me.  
  
Feedback greatly appreciated, as ever... especially for this chapter. I'm still not sure how I feel about it.  
  
Disclaimer: I suppose I own the nurse. Big whoop.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
  
  
8. [M]  
  
  
  
It would have been so easy to get on that bus.  
  
Right. Easy as life, I'm sure.  
  
I'm kidding myself. That's just wishful thinking. It wouldn't have been easy at all, it would have been nothing but pain and regret and loneliness because I wasn't like them. I couldn't just go buy a car and drive across the country, or tear myself away from my lover for three weeks, only miles away yet so, so far... without a goodbye, without an explanation.  
  
They were all so wrong... how could they be so wrong? I *wasn't* the strong one. I was the weakest of all of us, because any strength that may have manifested itself in me was false. It all came from *their* weaknesses. They came to me, they needed me... whether they said it in so many words or not. Usually not. And I would sit and listen and fix things and take care of them... it made me feel strong.  
  
But I wasn't. I was only strong when they were weak.  
  
And it's so obvious now. Where am I when they're strong again? Here. Nowhere. Unneeded.  
  
I watched as he tore down the stairs, once more forgetting a house key, and I knew he had won. He was still in love with her, he always had been, and despite what she told me, somehow I knew she would end up with him. She loved me, that much I didn't doubt. But I was sure, once they were in a room together again, alone, with their memories and their history and their blazing chemistry... she would remember how much she loved him, how she'd cried for him, and how I'd been there to understand and support it all.  
  
She'd go back to him.  
  
In a heartbeat.  
  
Being able accept that, I convinced myself, would make me strong.  
  
And so I packed up the little stash of money I kept under my mattress, threw some clothes and a cereal box into a bag, and taped a note to the door, leaving Roger my only house key. I wouldn't be needing it anymore. I said I'd gone to work, and made some joke about him waiting outside for me again, and scribbled a smiley face at the end, and I made my way to Port Authority.  
  
I bought a ticket.  
  
I don't even remember to where.  
  
And I sat on a bench for half and hour and waited for my bus, and realized I felt no stronger than I had half an hour ago.  
  
Running away wasn't going to make me a stronger person.  
  
Maybe it did for Roger, and for Mimi, but I couldn't run away. Maybe I was just a shameless masochist—unfulfilled unless tortured. But I was going to see this through, because no matter what happened, it would be easier than running away. It just had to be.  
  
Except I had a sick feeling that it wouldn't.  
  
I took the subway back to the loft, never having felt more relieved to be home, and peeled a new note off the door:  
  
'Went shopping, we're out of tomatoes. And where the fuck do we keep that waffle maker thing??? I looked EVERYWHERE!  
  
See ya.  
  
R'  
  
I actually found myself laughing at this. When I turned the note around, I found the house key taped to the back. Yes, that would probably be a safer place for it. I snatched a pen out of my pocket and scribbled a response on the bottom of the note:  
  
'Tomatoes? Waffles? What, are you pregnant or something? It's under the stack of placemats in the cupboard.'  
  
And, feeling marginally less miserable, I retained the key, stuck the note back on the door, and made my way inside. At sight of the '1' on the answering machine display, I hit Play.  
  
"Mark... it's me. Call me, I need to talk to you."  
  
Life always managed to bring me down when something had finally put a smile on my face.  
  
Usually Mimi's voice was what effected that smile, but this time... I wasn't stupid. This was different. No one starts good news with 'I need to talk to you.'  
  
My mouth went dry and my hands were suddenly freezing as I held the phone to my ear and listened to it ring. Once. Twice.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
Oh, lucky me. "Maureen, it's me, put Mimi on."  
  
"She's not here."  
  
Well, hello déjà vu. "What??"  
  
Maureen offered her longest, most theatrical sigh. "I mean, she's in the shower—wait, okay, she's running out wearing a bunch of towels and gesturing wildly for the phone, so I—"  
  
There was a muffled phone exchange on the other line as I waited, and finally... "Mark?"  
  
I let myself relax at the sound of her voice, which now sounded somewhat less desperate than it had in her voice mail. "Hi."  
  
"Hi. Um... hang on, Maureen's staring at me." Rustling on the other line as she dragged the phone down the hallway and into what I assumed was the bedroom. "Okay."  
  
"Okay." I echoed quietly, anxiously tracing my finger along the phone cord. "So... did you see him?"  
  
"Yeah. He came over." More of that dreaded silence, as I forced myself not to search the inner meaning behind 'came over'. "Mark... we have to tell him."  
  
"What?"  
  
"About us. We have to tell him."  
  
"Now?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"He—I—" I grasped for words that would make me look neither afraid nor inarticulate. "He's not here," I announced.  
  
"Then, when he comes back."  
  
I just wasn't going to get out of this. "Okay," I surrendered. But, feeling slightly more empowered by her ambition, I added one last, slim chance of a thought. "Will you come home?"  
  
A pause, which I couldn't help but interpret as a no. For a moment I heard nothing but her soft breathing... debating... considering... and I held my breath.  
  
"Yeah," she whispered. "I will."  
  
Yes, I figured as much.  
  
Wait a minute.  
  
She said yes.  
  
Relax, Cohen, it's not like you just asked her to marry you.  
  
Hmm.  
  
"You will? Really?"  
  
"If you'll let me," she added in a small voice.  
  
"If I'll let you?? You're nuts. Want me to come pick you up? I'll be right there."  
  
Her voice was smiling. I suspected mine was, too, but couldn't be sure; it's a characteristic only detectable through the other line, when your sense of hearing is overworked to make up for the lack of visual contact. I was beside myself. I wouldn't have even minded eating tomatoes and waffles. Hell, at this point I probably wouldn't even be able to tell the difference between the two.  
  
"Baby, I have to get dressed first..."  
  
"No, no you don't!"  
  
She giggled, the way I remembered from so long ago... but it really wasn't so long. It was remarkably recent, come to think of it. Three weeks. Just three weeks since morning would come and she'd be asleep beside me... or, more likely be tossing clothes in my direction during her daily fashion emergencies. Just three weeks since we'd turn off all the lights around 2 a.m., then spend the next hour trying to make each other laugh. Which didn't take much. I became embarrassingly giddy around her. Shameful, really. No one else had ever had that effect on me...  
  
Just three weeks... but it felt like a millennium.  
  
"I'll be over in about an hour," she finally concluded.  
  
Oh, God. An hour. It was so long. So very long. Thirty minutes I might have been able to handle, but this... "I'll... be here," I replied lamely.  
  
And we hung up, and I looked around the apartment that had been distinctly, unbearably Mimi-less in recent weeks, but now her presence was so very alive again. She always had that effect, though. When she'd be away at work, and nine-thirty would roll around, everything would light up. The empty apartment became almost welcoming. No matter how tired/furious/busy/frustrated I'd been all day, I'd perk up, knowing there was only half an hour left before I would see her again.  
  
I'd missed being in love.  
  
I'm not sure what deluded part of my mind was keeping me on alert for a knock at the door. Mimi hadn't knocked on this door in about two years, and this time was no exception. I was on the couch, staring at a blank, slumbering television set, counting the number of clicks the clock would make. I didn't even know where that clock was. I don't think I ever had. It was just noise... just insolent noise. And then, a much louder, tangible click from the door disturbed my daydream. I spun around, and there she was.  
  
It took only a glimpse of her—one brief flash of that flawless, beguiling presence, imprinting itself on my mind's eye, to make me realize. It had been mere hours since I'd seen her last, but I'd missed her more than I ever had in my life.  
  
We fell into each other's arms, and the bliss was exactly as my senses had memorized it... but the familiarity was not. She wasn't just... home. She had *come* home. There is no reunion quite like that of two lovers, torn apart by a dismal separation...  
  
Why was I sounding like a Harlequin novel? [...said Lola to herself. /disruptive A/N]  
  
"Hey..." I felt her warm hand against my face, guiding my gaze to hers. "Are you okay? You look all spaced out."  
  
"Yeah," I replied dreamily, trying not to imagine how goofy my grin must have looked. "I mean... I'm just glad you're home."  
  
She smiled, but so briefly I might have imagined it, before her face fell. "How are we supposed to do this?"  
  
I took a few thoughtful steps toward the couch, leading this small, precious little person along with me. "This was your idea," I reminded her.  
  
Giving up all coordination, I let myself flop down on the couch, and she was quick to follow, resting her head in my lap as I idly stroked her hair. A month ago I would have found us in the same position and not felt anything but absolute peace. Now all I could think of was when that front door might swing open again.  
  
"I'm scared," she whispered.  
  
"Don't be. It'll be okay. I promise—"  
  
"I'm going to lose both of you."  
  
"Don't say things like that!"  
  
I almost wished she'd had a rebuttal for that, too. I had so many great words on the edge of my tongue; poised for application. But all she did was sit up, put her arms around me, and rest her head against my chest.  
  
She tilted her head upward, looking at me, only centimeters away. "What would you do if this was our last night together?"  
  
I rolled my eyes. "Would you stop already?"  
  
"I'm just curious. Come on, it'll take our minds off this. And I want details," she added with a wink.  
  
Fine. I knew I couldn't escape. "Well, I..." This shouldn't be hard, Mark. It's not a hard question. You'd carry her back to the bedroom, the end. "I'd just... God, this is depressing! I don't know, I'd..."  
  
Clueless as I always was, it took me a minute before the look in her eyes told me that she hadn't been looking for a verbal response at all. And with that in mind, I leaned over and kissed her.  
  
Which was when the door opened.  
  
We broke apart instantly, practically a reflex, in barely a split second. Bullets had sped through the air at a lesser speed than this. It was almost as if we'd never touched at all—like we'd just been sitting on opposite ends of the couch all afternoon.  
  
Roger made his way through the door some seconds later, a giant paper bag in his arms blocking his view. "Hey," said a voice behind the bag. "I couldn't find tomatoes, so I got doughnuts instead. I thought we could—"  
  
His vision was restored as he relocated the bag to the table, and he froze.  
  
I watched as Mimi stood up, and then I stood up, and now everything felt even more awkward, if that was possible. Here we were, all three sides of the most disastrous love triangle imaginable, and only two of us had any clue. Surprisingly for once, I was one of them.  
  
"Oh my God... hi," he whispered, crossing over to her and taking her into his arms.  
  
Guilt struck me as I realized my jealousy. But jealousy had struck first, so that's the one I stuck with. How much easier it was, after all. How much more justifiable it felt.  
  
Roger stood back, holding her at arm's length and beaming. "Are you... I mean, are you home? Like, officially?"  
  
Mimi glanced at me, but I chose to find a stain on the carpet much more enthralling.  
  
"Yeah," she answered softly, and I knew she was smiling. I didn't have to look. "I guess I am."  
  
And then she was back in his arms, and I stood at the other side of the room with my hands in my pockets, imagining all the wonderful other places I could be at this moment, had I only jumped onto that bus at Port Authority.  
  
"Um," she went on, pulling away from him and taking his hand in hers, "I wanted to talk to you about something."  
  
Her composure, however artificial, put me somewhat at ease, and I looked up at her to find she was ahead of me, and already staring at me for encouragement. I stared back blankly, feeling more helpless by the second.  
  
"Actually..." she amended, taking a few steps towards me, "we both have something to talk to you about."  
  
Roger flashed a fleeting smile in my direction, and shrugged. "Sure, what's up?"  
  
Well, jeez, the least he could do was act all somber and suspicious. How were we supposed to do this if he thought all we had in mind was inviting him to a movie, or planning a birthday party for Maureen, or...  
  
I felt Mimi's hand clasp around mine, and that's when my heart began beating right out of my chest. It was the first time we had shown any signs of 'togetherness' in front of Roger, and what killed me was that he still had no clue.  
  
At this rate, maybe he'd never have to know at all.  
  
Roger collapsed on a chair with a bottle of Coke. Mimi gave my hand a final, reassuring squeeze, before releasing it. We started for the couch, each step an agonizing procrastination. And then, three feet from the couch, she collapsed.  
  
I don't even know what it was—for all I knew, she'd tripped on a shoelace or something. Except I knew that wasn't it. For one thing, her shoes didn't have laces.  
  
It took me longer to realize what had actually happened, and by the time I did, Roger had already leapt from his chair and was on the floor, by her side, his arms around her protectively. I knelt down beside them and, still in shock, took her hand.  
  
"Baby, what happened?" he asked desperately. "Are you okay?"  
  
She was trying to smile, but I knew it was fake. "I'm fine," she insisted, pulling herself up to a seated position and shrugging off our help. "I just tripped. I'm fine. Really."  
  
Roger had quite taken control of the situation, so I stood back as he helped her up. For several seconds I watched, only half-aware of what was going on.  
  
"Roger, I'm fine, you can let go," she sighed, stepping away from him slowly and reaching for a chair to support herself. "I don't need to be treated like a baby—"  
  
She was instantly proved wrong, losing her balance again and toppling into my arms. I leapt at the opportunity to take care of her—dammit, it was my turn, anyhow—and led her to the couch as Roger trailed anxiously behind me.  
  
"I'm calling 911," he announced, starting for the kitchen.  
  
"Oh, Jesus Christ, Roger, would you chill?!" she demanded, trying in vain to prop herself up on a pillow, despite my continuous efforts to the contrary. "I'm just tired, that's all. It's not the end of the world."  
  
But Roger was already talking away on the phone, and for a brief moment, we were alone. "What happened?" I whispered. "Seriously, are you okay? Are you dizzy or anything?"  
  
"No," she snapped, pulling herself up to a seated position to prove this, and then promptly plopped back down on the couch. "Maybe a little."  
  
I nodded—a pathetic attempt to convince myself everything was fine. "Okay. I'm here. You're going to be fine, we'll get you to the hospital, and..."  
  
"I don't *need* to go to the hospital!"  
  
"I don't care, you're going anyway!"  
  
She used a remaining bit of strength to pull me close to her. "I love you," she whispered.  
  
I smiled. "I know. Now don't scare me like this again. I keep saying you need to get more sleep..."  
  
Roger returned to us, and I pulled away. "They say it'll be an hour before they can get anyone over here." He reached into his pocket and tossed me his key chain. "Go start the car."  
  
"It's your car, why can't you start it?" I whined. "I'll stay with her."  
  
He raised an eyebrow. "Uh-huh, and I suppose you're going to carry her downstairs too?"  
  
I hated being the little one.  
  
"Fine." I snatched his keys and disappeared out the front door.  
  
It was a very long, unfulfilling wait in the car, and for some stupid reason, I waited in the driver's seat. So naturally, Roger spent the entire ride to the hospital in the back seat, with Mimi curled up on his lap as he went on whispering words of comfort and support, and every few minutes, saying something amusing enough to make her smile, but quiet enough that I couldn't hear.  
  
I knew it was so very immature of me to be fighting petty jealousy at a time like this, but frankly, I didn't give a shit.  
  
Collins was already there by the time we arrived, and when I turned to Roger for an explanation, he was too busy yelling at a nurse that we had an emergency, and that we weren't going to wait around for four hours. I assumed he'd called everyone in our family during my painfully tedious wait in the car.  
  
I turned back to Collins, who glanced from Roger and Mimi to me. "Is she okay?"  
  
"Yeah, of course, she's fine," I replied instinctively. Why wouldn't she be, after all? "She was just feeling a little dizzy, so..."  
  
"Yeah, Roger told me."  
  
Of course he did.  
  
Maureen and Joanne appeared moments later, the former noticeably in tears as she rushed over to Mimi, who was now in the process of being escorted into a room that, from where I was standing, looked to have a strict no- visitors rule—Maureen had taken over for Roger in yelling at the nurse, and had quickly busied herself in whining about their ludicrous policies. I couldn't help but agree with her on that.  
  
Roger seemed to have everything remarkably under control. He whispered something to another nurse, who subsequently opened the door to Mimi's room, into which he disappeared.  
  
What the fuck? Why him and not me? I was the one who...  
  
Yeah, except he didn't know that.  
  
I found an empty chair and sat down (although I soon wished it *had* been occupied, at least by a cushion, seeing as it was about as soft as a large stack of bricks), and forced myself into distraction by observing our little group.  
  
Maureen was standing forlornly in the middle of the deserted hallway, shrugging off any attempts at comfort from Joanne, who eventually gave up and walked over to Collins. It wasn't long before they were engrossed in some sotto voce discussion, and Maureen relinquished her independence to come sit beside me.  
  
I looked over at her, and she offered a weak smile. "Is she okay?" she asked. Why was everyone asking *me*?  
  
"Yeah, of course, honey, she's fine." And why did I keep answering with that?  
  
Maureen, having no other appealing option, accepted this, and rested her head against my shoulder.  
  
Roger broke into our moment, which had been nearing almost peaceful, as he stepped out of her room. "Mark, she wants to see you," he informed me.  
  
"Me?" I asked. Stupid, Mark, very stupid. Of course she wanted to see you.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
I made my way past him, and the nurses, who eyed me suspiciously, and a sickening déjà vu of rehab began spinning through my head. When I saw her, the only spot of life and color in the starkly white, tomblike room, she was already clad in a godawful hospital gown, and hooked up to one of those beeping machines. I hardly expected myself to remember its technical term at a time like this. At any rate, those nurses certainly hadn't wasted any time.  
  
I practically flew to her side, pulling a chair as close to the bed as I could, and took her hands. "Hey, you," I whispered.  
  
She smiled. "I can't believe you guys are putting me through this."  
  
"How are you feeling?"  
  
"Well... shitty," she confessed with a chuckle.  
  
I sighed, shaking my head in frustration. "See? This is why I hate doctors. You were fine until you got here."  
  
She looked away. "Yeah."  
  
I glanced around the room, and thankfully, the last of the nurses had vanished and left us to ourselves for a short, albeit highly appreciated, moment. I leaned over and nuzzled my head against her shoulder. "I love you," I whispered.  
  
I felt her hand on the back of my neck. "I love you too."  
  
I looked up. "Hey, I was thinking. Once you're feeling better, and... ya know, once we get all this... sorted out. We should go away together. Like, Hawaii or Paris or something. Or—ooh, how about Florence?"  
  
Another chuckle... but weaker this time. "Right, with all our thousands of dollars."  
  
I shrugged. "Someday."  
  
She watched me for a moment, and I knew her mind had drifted as a single tear appeared in the corner of her eye. Nurses' faces began popping up out in the hall through the windows of the room, giving us obvious hints.  
  
"All right, go, get out of here," Mimi instructed, a sad smile briefly illuminating her face. "People will say we're in love."  
  
I couldn't keep from smiling. I leaned over, just barely touching her lips with mine, and stood up. "I'll see you soon."  
  
She nodded.  
  
I returned to my seat beside Maureen.  
  
None of us moved for the next hour.  
  
The next sign of life appeared when the doctor popped his head out of Mimi's room, and gestured to a nurse.  
  
Silence. Darkness. Exhaustion. A clock ticking. Why was a clock always ticking?  
  
The nurse popped her head out and, in turn, signaled for another nurse.  
  
Before long, it seemed like the entire staff of the second floor was crowded into her room, until one... that first one I remembered Roger yelling at... emerged, alone, and approached the five of us.  
  
"Are you her... family?" she asked. One of us must have nodded, because her face fell, and her hands began trembling. "I—I'm sorry," she choked.  
  
And then a stretcher emerged from the room, surrounded by the throng of nurses and doctors who had collected behind that door, and I suspected I was the only one who noticed that there was a figure on it, some form of something, covered by a white sheet, as it was wheeled down the hallway, and disappeared around a corner.  
  
It hit Roger first. He sprung away from the wall, where he'd been standing, motionless, for the past hour, and dashed twenty feet down the hall into her room. It hit me only milliseconds later, and I followed him.  
  
Her room was just as dark, just as deathly white. But the bed was empty.  
  
Roger didn't move. He just stood there, dead center in the middle of the room, staring at the empty bed.  
  
I wasn't quite that disciplined. I fell against the wall and slumped to the floor in a silent downpour of tears, which vanished as quickly as they had come. Most of them didn't even make it down the side of my face. My gaze simply followed his, to the empty bed, and remained there, free of emotion.  
  
Maureen wasn't far behind, and disaster inevitably ensued. She broke down into hysterics, fell into the arms of Joanne who had wisely followed her as quickly as she could. Collins remained behind them, silent, from what I could tell—which was rather limited seeing as I never tore my eyes away from the bed.  
  
Roger did, however, just long enough to address everyone else. "GO!" he screamed suddenly. "Please, go, just go—go." And with that, he roughly ushered them all into the hall and slammed the door behind them.  
  
We returned to our respective positions—dead center of the room; and a corner, slumped against the wall.  
  
For half an hour, we didn't dare to breathe.  
  
I couldn't shake the reality from my mind—she was no longer my escape.  
  
How bitterly ironic, when the one thing we escape to in adversity finally abandons us. Where do we escape to then?  
  
Over and over, for an hour, I would go through the pattern in my mind, unwittingly, and it tormented me. I hadn't quite grasped the fact that she was gone. All I knew was that I was very miserable, for what must be a very good reason. And then my mind would automatically turn to her, and think... what does it matter what I'm going through? I can get through anything if we're together.  
  
And now we're not.  
  
How was I supposed to get through *that*?  
  
I can't imagine a darker picture than the one created by us in that empty room. Empty, even with both of us in it. Two solitary silhouettes, so apart in that moment, far unable to acknowledge how intensely connected they truly were. Connected through death and finality and total, undiluted loss. A loss cutting so deeply through reality that even our own presence went unnoticed. I don't think he even realized I was there. But somehow, on some subconscious level, he recognized me as a necessary part of this room, this scene... not one from the group he'd turned away and forced into the hall.  
  
I'd betrayed him... but he let me stay. I was allowed to remain in that room. In his life. Part of the loss... part of his pain.  
  
His eyes turned toward me then, and somehow I sensed it despite the fact that I hadn't peeled my gaze away from the empty bed. I looked up at him. That look on his face was so foreign—vaguely reminiscent of when we lost April. But added dimensions were seeping through now. With April, despite the shock, I think he had seen it coming for a long time. I know I had.  
  
But the way he was looking at me now... it was only confusion. He looked like someone from another planet who had never known the concept of death. And with that came great innocence, of course. Innocence, and dependence.  
  
He always managed to come across so mistrustful of everyone, didn't he? What an illusion...  
  
But not now. I had always been able to read his eyes, for as long as I could remember. Usually all I got from them was one word... but it was enough. It was always enough. We'd never needed many words, anyhow.  
  
And now that word was 'why?'  
  
He knew...  
  
Did he know?  
  
Did he really know that six months ago, I'd sat on the couch with the love of his life and kissed her, and she kissed me back? Or that five months ago, on her birthday, alone in the loft late at night, behind that half- closed bedroom door, we'd shared something I never imagined could be so wonderful?  
  
If he'd waited just one more second before turning away, I might have crumbled. I might have collapsed under the guilt and confessed it all right then. But he went back to watching the empty bed—maybe he thought if we both watched it hard enough, it would bring her back.  
  
No, he didn't know... because I hadn't told him.  
  
And now my chance was over. I couldn't tell him. What a perfect excuse.  
  
...And that's how I detach from feeling alive.  
  
A nurse walked in.  
  
It took her at least ten seconds to take notice of us. Obviously our own self-unawareness had rubbed off on her. I felt her eyes jump between us.  
  
"Which one of you was the father?"  
  
Voice. Sound. Words. All foreign objects.  
  
My mind, against my will, absorbed her words, and—how dare it?—interpreted them into a vague comprehension.  
  
Which one of us was the father?  
  
Was she talking to us?  
  
I looked at her, and then at Roger, who was watching me—offering another chance? He looked at the nurse.  
  
"What?" That was him.  
  
The nurse caught on more quickly to this than she had to our initial presence. She knew we had no clue. And so she fixed it, with more words—more foreign objects.  
  
"She was two months pregnant." 


	9. 

A/N: 05-20-02—Well... after the (however amusing) complaints and threats about chapter 8, I'm back. :) Many thanks for the, er, emotional reviews. LOL. Believe me, that chapter was as distressing to write as it apparently was to read. It's nice to know I wasn't the only one who ended up sad and depressed. :) (I actually got a cold from it. *sniff* So... yeah.)  
  
A list of the characters I own: *holds up a blank sheet of paper*  
  
Liss, you owe me more FMFF! (Ha, try pronouncing that as a word. What fun. :P)  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
  
  
~ I know the truth and it haunts me... ~  
  
  
  
9. [R]  
  
  
  
I think it hit us both at the same time. Not any meaning from those words—no, that was just noise from a woman in a white uniform. What hit us simultaneously was the realization that we were staring at each other. But, in retrospect, he must have realized it a split second later than I had, because he hadn't been quick enough to avert his gaze... and I saw. I saw past those black-rimmed glasses and those liquid blue eyes... and I knew I'd seen enough.  
  
That wasn't just shock behind those eyes.  
  
That was guilt.  
  
The nurse was gone now... unable to stand the tension in the room. What made her think we could either?  
  
Silence again... and my mind wrapped around those words that were so far away now. Maybe far enough to be in another life. Maybe they weren't real after all...  
  
She was two months pregnant.  
  
How it all fit together so nicely now... bringing my completely fucked up life to a nice, tidy close. Not only had I lost her, I'd lost her to *him*.  
  
Benny.  
  
He'd won after all.  
  
She was gone, and he'd won, and I'd lost, and no one had breathed a word. Not even him... not even the one with the black-rimmed glasses and liquid blue eyes. The one who hadn't hidden so much as a candy stash from me since the day we met six years ago.  
  
A fleeting, brilliant flash of memory—six years ago... a small blond man, barely nineteen, hair sticking up in odd places. He was holding a camera, but they way he held it, it looked more like an extension of his arm than a piece of electronic equipment. Bent down on the sidewalk, zoomed in on a patch of grass. I walked past him, muttering "Freak" under my breath, and got a good twenty feet ahead until my curiosity became too much, and I simply had to turn back and ask him what in God's name he was filming.  
  
A butterfly with a broken wing, he told me. And then he pointed to it. And for some reason, it broke my heart.  
  
I don't think we've been away from each other for more than a day at a time since then.  
  
...Not counting the last six months, of course.  
  
Is this what we became when forced apart from each other? Deceitful and withdrawn and untrusting and...  
  
"Roger?"  
  
...And despite it all, he could still own me with a breath of those two syllables.  
  
I looked at him again, and found words coming to my mouth from some place I'd been trying to ignore. Couldn't I keep ignoring it? There were so many wonderful flashbacks I could summon to mind to keep my thoughts away from all of this, if only given the chance... if I only tried hard enough...  
  
"I'll kill him," I whispered.  
  
It felt strange to be back in a position where we could actually open our mouths and speak—words felt so inappropriate now, but I could only suspect his came to him as unforeseen as mine did to me.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Benny," I said to myself. "He did this... he... it's him... he was..."  
  
Something happened in those eyes of his when I turned back for a reaction. They weren't those usual calm pools of cobalt, the way they were so often, even in crisis. How quickly they'd brewed up a storm, turning into a turbulent, unreadable ocean with crashing waves and lightning and...  
  
"Roger... no..."  
  
"Don't you dare cover for him."  
  
"No, you don't understand, I—"  
  
And I was out the door. My feet aimlessly traced the path of the nurse and found their way down the hall, somehow locating an Exit sign. I quickened my pace, hoping that might somehow drown out the voice calling after me from the other end of the hall. The end of the hall I couldn't turn back to. But why? What would happen if I'd turned back?  
  
I'd asked myself that all the way to Santa Fe.  
  
How I even made it to Benny's was a mystery; I hadn't been to his place in over a year, and was surprised I hadn't blocked it out of my memory for obvious reasons. But maybe it was just my fate, offering one last gesture of pity—at any rate, I found myself at his front door twenty minutes later.  
  
How did I get here?  
  
I pounded my fist against the front door, four times. And waited. Nothing. But he was here, I knew he was here. Here, with that guilty conscience, if he even had a conscience. I could feel it. I could almost feel the guilt from inside the building seeping out, eating away at the air, making my breaths short and ragged and faint...  
  
Was it really coming from inside the building?  
  
Could it instead have been that same guilt in those blue eyes, miles away at the hospital?  
  
Certainly not. Guilt like that couldn't travel this far. So he hadn't told me about Benny. So what? He wasn't the one who knocked her up and killed her.  
  
It had nothing to do with the disease, you know.  
  
I heard the nurses—it had taken the twenty-minute drive for me to formulate their hushed voices into a tangible conversation. But I'd heard everything. Did you know she was HIV-positive? they said to each other. But she looked so healthy, another one replied. Of course, answered one more, because it had nothing to do with her death. No... that came from pregnancy complications.  
  
Mimi had spent a year and a half helping me come to terms with the reality that AIDS would someday take her life, and someday take mine.  
  
It hadn't. But she was still gone. How unfair that I wasted all that time, worrying to death whenever she would catch the flu or find out that her T- cell count was lower than they'd hoped... when in the end, none of it mattered. She could have been the healthiest person in the world, and she'd still be gone.  
  
The front door eased open, slowly, and Benny's figure appeared. Only a brief glance at his face told me he knew. He knew she was gone. Maureen had called, or Collins had called, or he was psychic... but he knew.  
  
There was still one thing he didn't know.  
  
That brief glance was all I allowed to pass between us—no words, no exchange—before I stepped forward and sent my fist into his face.  
  
As it was probably the last thing on earth he'd expected at the moment, he reeled backwards—barely retaining his balance, but still keeping a traumatized glare fixated on me. I waited for him to blow up, to punch me right back, to say something, ANYthing. But he only stared at me.  
  
I managed to locate that tool that had once been my voice. But there was no power to it. Just sound. And barely that. Only emotionless shadows of words. "You fucking bastard..."  
  
"Roger..." Ah, so he could speak after all? "I don't know what you—"  
  
"Don't." I shook my head. "Just don't."  
  
This seemed to be a reasonable request, except that he actually honored it and remained silent, and I realized I had no idea what to say.  
  
"How—HOW COULD YOU DO IT?"  
  
"Seriously, I—"  
  
No, no. Questions weren't asking for answers at this point. "She's GONE, Benny—"  
  
"I *know* that! Maureen called me!"  
  
"You killed her!!!"  
  
"What the hell are you talking about?"  
  
"*She was pregnant.*"  
  
I wanted so badly to yell that out, maybe disrupt any neighbors in a three- mile radius. But I couldn't. It was a statement I could barely admit to myself, let alone scream it to a person I didn't even want to share it with. I wanted him to feel his own pain from it, yes, of course... but I didn't want him to see mine.  
  
His voice fell to a level so soft I thought maybe some demon of silence had suddenly possessed him. "What?"  
  
"Oh, don't act so fucking surprised! How long did you two wait after I left for Santa Fe? Or was this going on while I was still here?"  
  
"Jesus Christ, Roger!! I'm not the father! I haven't been in a room alone with her in like half a year!"  
  
"You're lying," I stated simply. But decidedly curious about the outrageous plot he might concoct, I persisted. "Who is it then?"  
  
His eyes widened as if the answer were the most obvious one in the world. "MARK! God, they've been going at it for months!"  
  
So that's what it feels like to have your heart stop beating.  
  
I half-watched as he paced the room in shock. "Holy shit, he got her pregnant?"  
  
That was it. I lunged for him, shoving him backward against the nearest wall. "You're a fucking liar!"  
  
"No one TOLD you?!"  
  
"Mark would *never* do that!!"  
  
"Ask him!"  
  
I released him, only because the sick feeling in my stomach had reached a point of driving me to weakness. "He'd never do that," I repeated.  
  
"ASK HIM."  
  
"NO!"  
  
"No?!" an incredulous chuckle escaped his lips. "Well, of course. Because you know it's the truth."  
  
I backed away from him. "How dare you accuse him of this... he hasn't done anything to you! He even kept all this a secret, for YOU! You owe him everything!"  
  
But Benny just shook his head, a mockery of my supposed ignorance. "Ask him. Ask Maureen, ask Joanne, ask Collins! Ask anyone in the whole fucking city! EVERYone knows!"  
  
The final two words echoed in the room as I grasped for a reaction. A reaction that would prove me right. That would somehow prove me right... I was good at this. I could always make someone crumble and confess. I couldn't have lost that talent.  
  
*Everyone knows...*  
  
Another unbidden flashback swamped my thoughts, temporarily paralyzing me from any reaction. And then another, and another, like all the steps of a crazy math problem suddenly dropping right into place on the sheet of paper... a sheet of paper now ripped by excessive erasing and smeared with long-forgotten margin notes. Notes, now completely worthless...  
  
[A/N: Yeah, I've been spending way too much time on math homework.]  
  
A home video tape, under a stack of nine unlabeled ones and two pillows. A cake and candles, and a toast with plastic sporks and Styrofoam cups, and a little girl at the table. Except she wasn't a little girl anymore, she was twenty-one. And she smiled at the camera and whispered 'I love you' to the person behind it...  
  
Clothes strewn about downstairs. Men's clothes. Not hers. Mark's.  
  
*We've been... sharing the apartments. It was pretty lonely around here for awhile.*  
  
No, no, no, no. He wouldn't. She wouldn't. It was ludicrous. It could have been laughable at any other time or place.  
  
*I've kind of been taking care of her.*  
  
No. This was nuts. Losing her was making me lose my mind. Next thing I knew I'd be accusing Maureen of being the one to seduce her. Come to think of it, that would make a hell of a lot more sense than this.  
  
My mind returned to the present. "You're lying," I concluded.  
  
"Roger—"  
  
"YOU'RE LYING!"  
  
And on that final, however unconvincing note, I stormed out.  
  
I'd missed storming out.  
  
Somehow, it wasn't quite so fulfilling this time.  
  
He was there in the loft when I returned... as he always was. If this were in any way normal, he would look up from his camera, timidly offer that half-smile, and all would be over. But when I opened the door, he was standing against a wall by the kitchen, watching the opposite wall. His camera lay on the table, long forgotten. The room was dark—not pitch black, but dark enough to lower any inhibitions, if need be.  
  
Light enough, however, to see the streaks of dried tears on his face.  
  
I closed the door emphatically, making my presence known. "You won't believe this," I announced, tossing my jacket onto a chair by my guitar.  
  
Mark turned his gaze to me, but he didn't move. He didn't have to. Staying frozen against that wall said enough—he was obviously terrified that I'd thrown Benny off a bridge or ran my car over him, or done something equally appealing. I probably should have, come to think of it.  
  
I shrugged helplessly. "He denied it. I confronted him, and he denied it. Can you believe him? What does he have to hide now? It's so obvious!"  
  
"Roger..." His voice was shaking, but the rest of him remained frozen.  
  
"No, no, wait, you haven't heard the best part," I went on. "He accused YOU! Yeah, exactly," I added, pretending there had been some reaction in that expressionless stare. "He's got this whole story that you guys were... y'know—"  
  
His eyes fell shut. "Roger."  
  
"I know, okay, I'm sorry, forget all his sick details. But... but..."  
  
Oh, how I wanted to share this. How I wanted him to tell me I wasn't insane. That Benny was the crazy one. That this was as outrageous as I knew it had to be, because he was my best friend and best friends were supposed to gang up on all the same people.  
  
"The audacity..." I went on, muttering to a spot on the floor. "The fucking nerve... how he could say that about you, about her... after everything he's done..."  
  
I didn't think my rambling had been all that powerful, but something hit Mark the wrong way, and he collapsed into a sobbing heap on the floor—pressed against that same spot in the wall, but huddled close to the ground, hugging his knees.  
  
This was the second time in as many weeks that I'd made him cry. What the hell was the matter with me? He hadn't done anything. He was the victim. He'd loved her too; the loss wasn't mine alone. And then along come bastards like Benny, and me and my thoughtless rambling and fury, and reduce him to this.  
  
I went to his side and sat beside him, wondering what I was supposed to do.  
  
"I'm sorry," I whispered, placing a hand on his shoulder, and then drew it back, resolving that comfort from me was probably the last thing he wanted. "I'm sorry," I repeated. "I'm just so—I can't believe he—I'm sorry, I'll shut up."  
  
But nothing helped. Not words, not the simple reality of my presence, not a comforting touch. I was beginning to wonder if I'd have to leave the room before any of this could get fixed.  
  
Words from mere hours ago filled my head.  
  
*You can't just fix this. You don't even know what's broken.*  
  
"Then tell me."  
  
He actually looked up—this was progress. This was good. "What?"  
  
It was then I realized I'd said that out loud. "I..."  
  
He turned away from me again, burying his face in his arms, and I'd lost another chance.  
  
And so I did all I knew how to do. The only thing that ever worked in the past, on those very rare occasions when it was needed. I put my arms around him, a mess of jackets and scarves and tears, and I said nothing.  
  
I wanted to say something, though. I wanted to tell him it was okay, we would get through this, we were going to survive this—but I couldn't, because in an instant, he violently fought his way out of my embrace and scrambled to his feet, occupying a spot on the floor far away from any walls or furniture, or me.  
  
I stood up as well, but he took a step back. "Roger, it's me."  
  
Of course it was, I knew that. He didn't want me to think he was helpless. He wanted me to think he was the same strong person he always was. He wasn't acting like himself, and neither was I, but forgive us—someone very close to us had just died, and I don't think either of us should be expecting anything from each other at this point.  
  
'It's me,' he was saying, as if I could ever forget who he was or what he meant to me. 'I can take care of myself, remember?'  
  
I waited for an elaboration on this, and received none.  
  
Was that really what he was saying?  
  
"Mark..."  
  
He shook his head and spit all the words out in one breath. "It's me. I'm the father. I'm sorry. You left, and I fell in love with her, and... oh, God, we were so careful, I don't know how this happened..."  
  
No.  
  
He didn't just say that.  
  
Why were *those* words so lucid, so immediately processed and interpreted? Why couldn't they be foreign objects, too, and be pushed aside into some subconscious level until I was ready to hear them, and maybe deny them?  
  
Because this was Mark. He spoke, and I listened. Unfailingly. Whether I wanted to or not. I had no choice. I couldn't push him away. Not him, not his words, not anything in those stormy eyes behind the black-rimmed glasses.  
  
He was taking slow steps backwards now, leaving a clear path between the door and the square of carpet I found myself glued to. He knew me too well.  
  
And I did walk across the room, slowly, because I had nowhere else to go. My guitar sat in front of me, propped against a chair. Aimlessly, I reached out and ran my finger along the edge of it. How little it meant now, and how quickly it had lost all meaning. My hand clasped around the top, lifting it up into my arms a final time.  
  
And then, with little thought and a bit more force, I slammed it into the closest wall.  
  
As the instrument shattered into a mass of strings and color and pieces of wood, I escaped the loft and sent the door crashing closed behind me. 


	10. 

A/N: 05-24-02—Aha, yes; everyone go listen to Anthony's song "Always" before reading this, if you want the full effect. No particular reason; it was just my mood-setter. Now it can be yours. :) Here, another multi- flashback chapter... in which it will be entirely appropriate to say "Poor Mark" at any given moment. I'm posting in hopes that Becca will take a hint and do the same. I'm dying here. Must have chapter five. And Liss—look, I did it! Happy? :P Bring on the next challenge! (But no more ocean life. Too hard.)  
  
Disclaimer: I don't even own Hungarian Rhapsody #2. (Although I wish I did. Sigh.) And I think there's a couple more instances of Aida-stealing in here. You can hardly blame me, I'm seeing it three weeks from Tuesday. Very excited. Adam Pascal, shirtless, two rows away. *dies*  
  
Er... yeah. On with chapter 10.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
  
  
*It's not like every devastating end brings a new beginning...*  
  
—Matt Caplan, "Broken" (I get to see him three weeks from Thursday, woohoo!!!)  
  
  
  
10. [M]  
  
  
  
Three days melted into one long, sleepless tangle of sunrises and sunsets—most of which went unnoticed by me.  
  
I found a bottle of wine left over from Valentine's Day, and tried to drink myself into a stupor... but found I couldn't hold anything down. Booze, cold cereal, cheese, doughnuts... nothing. Even a glass of water made me sick for the first two days.  
  
Every morning I would leave my bed, and after two steps, fall into a broken heap on the floor against the wall, unable to keep from noticing how empty the room was. Every morning I kept thinking that maybe if I tried hard enough, I could pretend she was still here. And she *was* still here—her clothes, her shampoo bottles, her make-up, the photo albums that she worked on on Sunday afternoons... now all I had to do was pretend she was in the next room. Taking a shower, or playing around with my camera, or making waffles with strawberries and whipped cream (which was very rarely used on the actual waffles).  
  
All I had to do was forget that she was gone.  
  
All I had to do was forget how much I loved her.  
  
Every morning, when I forced myself out of that empty bedroom, into the even emptier remainder of our little apartment—*my* little apartment, now—I would find my eyes drifting towards the window, until I gave up and actually looked down at the street. Every morning I hoped to find his car parked along the sidewalk, and every morning, it wasn't.  
  
The fourth morning, I stopped looking.  
  
Despite everything, I was doing a pretty good job of not thinking about it. I was still on that level of emptiness-without-a-cause; content to remain depressed as long as I didn't start thinking about why. I could still pretend that she was coming home that evening, and all my problems would vanish into thin air at the click of that front door.  
  
My camera remained on the kitchen table, undisturbed. Once or twice a day I would pull myself off the couch and wander over to it, but by the time I got there, the few steps across the room had already taken up all my energy. I never even touched it.  
  
It was another restless night of staring up at the dark ceiling when the knock on the door came.  
  
Mimi had always slept on the left side of the bed, and I slept on the right. But lately I found myself rolling over to her side, hugging the empty space and being careful that my tears didn't wash away that lingering scent of coconut and strawberries that made that pillow so distinctly hers. She couldn't really be gone, I pleaded to whatever force or higher, eviler power had taken her from me. Not when that scent was so real... so vivid.  
  
After a few days, it started to fade.  
  
And that night came the knock on the front door. Fear crept its way into my thoughts. I don't know why. Intruders didn't knock, and if it wasn't an intruder, then it had to be someone I knew. I certainly had no reason to be afraid of anyone I knew. I should be ecstatic. A sign of life. A sign that someone was aware that, unlike some people, *I* was still alive... though barely.  
  
For the first time in four days, I was actually glad to escape that room. I actually had a reason to. I pulled on the nearest pair of pajama pants, located my glasses, and shuffled to the door.  
  
Behind it stood Maureen. Her soft, glowing face was streaked from crying, and her eyes blackened from the mascara and eye shadow that had collided with tears and were now running down her cheeks. Those insanely colored curls were pulled halfway up on top of her head, and she held an old sweater jacket tightly around her.  
  
"I couldn't sleep," she squeaked.  
  
Neither of us had enough energy to actually make it all the way inside, so instead we simply fell into each other's arms, and remained there in the doorway. It wasn't long before the cool night air from outside met the only slightly warmer air in the loft, causing us both to shiver.  
  
I pulled her inside, and closed the door behind us. As one tormented being, we found our way down the hall, one of my arms around her shoulder, the other around her waist. We reached the door to my bedroom, but I was more than a little reluctant to return to that place... and even more reluctant to share it with someone else.  
  
But she walked out of my embrace, crossed the room, and collapsed on my side of the bed. I watched from the doorway as she curled into a ball, choking on a persistent sob every few seconds. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do—I wasn't used to a woman occupying my bed. Except Mimi, of course. Strangely enough, the last one who'd occupied it before her was... Maureen.  
  
She seemed as comfortable there as she ever had, and I realized I was being granted another escape—a rare occasion in recent days: regression to a long gone time of my life, when there had been no Mimi and no suicides in the bathroom and no AIDS and no padlocked doors.  
  
I followed her footsteps and lay down on the bed, curling up against her and pulling a blanket around us. And something happened, something that had been no more than an unattainable dream for the last four days—  
  
I felt slightly less alone.  
  
I had lost my love... but she had lost her best friend.  
  
I could certainly relate to that.  
  
It was a strangely fulfilling emptiness that crossed between us, curled up together in a bed we hadn't shared in years, as silent tears flooded the pillows. How fast that scent of coconut and strawberries faded into the even more familiar, yet long-forgotten aroma of kiwi and vanilla and the latest Givenchi fragrance. It tore me apart, that decision lying before me—whether to hold onto that last trace of my love, or the comfort of a friend's embrace.  
  
I chose the latter, and we were asleep in minutes.  
  
Maureen was gone the next morning when I woke up. It couldn't have been a more familiar experience. In all our time together, I could probably count on both hands the number of times I woke up beside her. I suspected it's why I'd grown so very attached to nights with Mimi. There wasn't one morning I opened my eyes without seeing that bundle of curls peeking out from the top of the sheet, or at least somewhere in the room. The first few nights we were together, I would fall asleep wondering if I would ever see her again. And then, a week later, I woke up in the middle of the night to find her wide awake, watching me sleep. I'd never felt more secure in my life.  
  
She had left a note by my bed, however. 'I love you. Call me later.'  
  
That was Maureen, all right. So many pointless words in the light of day, but when night fell, and we were alone in our room with nothing around us but darkness and each other, that's all she would say. Even if she wasn't there the next morning. Even if we'd had a fight that day... which was more often than not. She would still say it, just before we fell asleep. 'I love you, Marky.'  
  
I knew she always meant it.  
  
That afternoon, I pulled myself out of bed. It was my first Sunday since... it.  
  
I wasn't quite up to recognizing it as the day I lose my love, my best friend, and my future all in one night. For now, it was just... it. My curse. The beginning of the end of my life.  
  
Sundays were our day. On Sundays I never had to go over to NYU, and she never had to be at the club. We'd wake up late after the usual wild passion of Saturday nights, eat a sickeningly huge breakfast, and spend the afternoon walking in Central Park. I would take my camera and film her, and people, and things, and whatever the hell else felt inspiring. Which, considering who I was with, was usually everything.  
  
Today, my camera remained on the table. Untouched in nearly a week. It hadn't been out of my hands for more than a few hours since the day I received it as a high school graduation present. And now, every day it began to feel a little less a part of me.  
  
And so I went to Central Park on Sunday afternoon, without Mimi for the first time in six months, and without my camera for the first time in four years. The last time had been on a dare. Roger bet me I couldn't go a week without taking it everywhere I went. For added meanness, he dragged me to Central Park without it, and broke down laughing when I finally sat stubbornly on a bench and declared that Central Park was pointless if I couldn't film anything. He rolled his eyes, pulled my camera out from underneath his jacket—much to my surprise—and placed it in my hands.  
  
God, I missed him.  
  
I reached the park, and spotted a bench where we'd shared an ice cream, scarcely one week before Roger's return. And with that single, random memory, the present became an empty space I was no longer part of.  
  
Six months ago.  
  
Only days after she arrived home from rehab... the night before she found the letters and I kissed her and we lay squashed on that couch in the darkness and she whispered that she loved me.  
  
It was the first time I felt it.  
  
We were in the living room, amusing ourselves by rearranging what little furniture we had. I'd twice been landed on by a chair, and Mimi was proving her immensely superior physical strength by sliding the couch around the room for no apparent reason. I simply stuck my tongue out at her from my spot on the floor, as I attempted to lift the chair off me.  
  
"Hold this," she instructed, tossing me a rolled up rug as she shoved an end table (translation: wooden box) over to one side.  
  
"Glad to help," I replied, eyeing the rug warily, but unable to suppress a grin.  
  
I searched for the remote, but it would have been impossible to find anything in this mess. I had borrowed a television set from work for a few days to do some editing at home, and soon discovered that cable TV was highly overrated.  
  
"Seriously, what *is* this?" I shook my head, watching the screen. "Who the hell makes documentaries on sea bass?"  
  
Mimi tossed me a throw pillow and a grin, and effortlessly shoved the couch a few more feet. "People like you, except who live out in the boonies."  
  
I put on quite a pout. "I don't film fish!"  
  
"You filmed our neighbor's *bug zapper* last night!"  
  
My mouth opened once, twice. No words came out, and she was still smiling at me triumphantly, mischievously... no way was I going to let her get away with that. In one awkward, leaping moment, I scrambled off the floor, retained a steady position on the floor, and hurled the pillow at her.  
  
She didn't waste any time, grabbed a much larger pillow, and threw it right back at me. I realized this could go on a while, abandoned props altogether, and began chasing her around the couch. I made it only halfway around before tripping on that damn rug and falling flat onto the ground.  
  
"Shit!" I mumbled into the floor.  
  
She stopped running and turned around to see what had become of me. I had never seen one person try so hard not to laugh. "Oh, Mark..." she began, but lost all control and burst out laughing.  
  
"Hush, you."  
  
She plopped down on the floor to help me up, but by the time I reached a seated position, neither of us really wanted to go any further. Her arms were around me, and I took advantage of my incapacitated state to rest my head against her shoulder. For a long, silent moment, we simply remained on the cold floor, leaning against each other and the back of the couch, half- listening to voices from the television discuss various sorts of bait.  
  
It had become like that, in recent days before this. One of us would walk up behind the other, or sit down beside the other, with the obvious, simple need for nothing more than a hug. And then for a few special moments, everything would be silent, and blank, and perfect.  
  
But this was the first time her touch had ever made my heart beat faster.  
  
Today on that park bench sat another couple, also sharing an ice cream. I wondered if maybe, four weeks from now, they would be torn from each other as we had.  
  
No, of course not. Things like that only happened to me.  
  
How ironic it was, really. I'd known her for years, and we'd been together for months, and all that time, I knew someday she would leave us. And I knew it could be someday soon. But 'someday' was never today. It was always tomorrow. Every morning I would wake up and be glad simply that we had made it through another day. All my worries could wait until tomorrow.  
  
And then tomorrow came too soon.  
  
It was so unfair. She'd never wanted to go. She may have believed in 'no day but today', but when it came down to it, I knew how scared she was. I knew firsthand...  
  
Three months ago.  
  
Neither of us had said a word on our way home on the subway. True, New York's underground transportation isn't exactly the milieu of choice to discuss especially personal issues out loud. But complaints of silence were just my excuse—what I really missed was the little things that took place when we were out together. The way she would reach under the table at a restaurant and take my hand, or glance at me across the subway car if we couldn't find two seats together, with that wildly seductive, 'You're mine when we get home' look.  
  
This time we'd found two seats together... but there was none of that today.  
  
We were coming back from her doctor's appointment. Just a routine check-up as always. They were generally pleasant excursions—they would say how wonderfully she was doing, and we'd go out for ice cream to celebrate. That's how it always was, for as long as I'd been tagging along. I didn't know it any other way. But today was different. Today they'd called us back to a stuffy white room with posters of internal organs tacked to the wall, and told us her T-cells weren't doing as well as they'd hoped, and that they were changing her prescription.  
  
I'm not sure why exactly this formed a silence between us. Maybe that memory we'd repressed was just coming back to haunt us—the one from the first time I went along to her appointment. She'd introduced me as her boyfriend, and her doctor smiled and shook my hand, and asked if I was HIV- positive too. I said no. He'd looked at me blankly for a moment before replying, "Oh."  
  
The silence from the subway continued throughout the day, although it wasn't a silence of resentment or grudges. We had nothing to be mad at each other for. It wasn't anyone's fault. It was one of those moments I just despised, where I knew we wouldn't be able to carry on a conversation if we tried, and it only pissed me off more to think that we'd even *have* to try.  
  
I crawled into bed early that night, and was doing my best to concentrate on a book, when she finally stepped into the room.  
  
She shot me a smile—a brief one—but even with that, the wave was lifted and I recovered my voice. "Hey."  
  
Her eyes locked with mine as she crawled onto the bed, lifted the book from my hands and placed it on the nightstand, and kissed me.  
  
Words really are overrated.  
  
Some while later, we lay curled up together, wide awake but utterly still, as I willed my heart to beat in rhythm with hers. It had grown considerably darker, but I could still see my shirt hanging on top of the closet door, to where it had been hastily thrown some time ago.  
  
I was idly stroking her back, my eyes fixated on the black ceiling, when I felt a cold drop of moisture on my shoulder. I lifted my head to look down at her, and she was crying.  
  
"Oh my God." I lifted us both up. "What's..."  
  
I fell to a silent halt as I watched her, and was met with that look of helplessness I so rarely encountered.  
  
"Talk to me," I pleaded.  
  
She blinked, once. Twice. Fresh tears were sent streaming down her face.  
  
"I don't want to leave you," she whispered.  
  
I wondered how I could still hear those words so clearly in my head, after all this time. Especially with the inevitable bustling noise of Central Park. Even on a Sunday afternoon. Peaceful, yes... but silent, no.  
  
As I kept walking, my significant lack of a camera was beginning to take its toll on me. It shouldn't, I reasoned; it should be the last thing on my mind at a time like this. But habit was too strong, and I found myself glaring with envy at the tourists who walked by me with their camcorders, gleefully filming landmarks and signs and homeless people, desperate to hold onto the memory of that New York experience.  
  
A slender young woman brushed past me in an obvious rush. I turned around, watching her run further and further in the opposite direction. Before she was completely out of sight, however, I spotted the pointe shoes she was carrying by the ribbons, and a pair of pink tights hanging out of her dance bag.  
  
Five months ago.  
  
It was a typical 2 a.m. chat, although this time we had assigned ourselves a topic—what we wanted to be when we grew up. All right, so we'd had a few drinks. That might explain why we were laughing so hard.  
  
She hit me with a nearby pillow, giggling uncontrollably. "You're not serious."  
  
"Oh, come on, it's not that weird."  
  
"A paleontologist?! What, like Ross on 'Friends'?"  
  
I rolled my eyes. "Well, when you're seven, it sounds cool! Digging up dinosaur stuff and whatnot, ya know..."  
  
She shook her head disbelievingly and kissed the tip of my nose. "You're such a dork, Mark Cohen."  
  
I smiled—dorkily, no doubt. "Your turn."  
  
She sighed, looking away. "Nah."  
  
"Come ON!" I pulled her onto my lap and dropped a kiss into her hair. "You have to. I told you mine."  
  
"Fine," she sighed again, fingering the end of my shirtsleeve. "I wanted to be a ballerina."  
  
My attention had been caught. "Really?"  
  
"I studied for eleven years."  
  
I fumbled for words as I pulled myself up from my slouched position and stared at her. "You never told me this."  
  
She smiled. "You never asked."  
  
"Well..." I shifted spots on the bed until I was sitting on my pillow. "What happened?"  
  
"I got kicked out of the house and became a junkie," she replied simply.  
  
I wasn't sure how I was supposed to respond to this. I couldn't say, 'Oh, you're exaggerating.' I'd taken her to rehab myself, after all. And I couldn't imagine a person more likely to get kicked out of the house. Probably before her sixteenth birthday, even. I wanted to ask her all about it—about her family and what happened to her on the streets and how on earth she could have ever fallen in love with someone like me...  
  
But what I actually found myself saying was significantly less verbose. "You should do it."  
  
"Do what?"  
  
"Be a ballet dancer. What's stopping you now?"  
  
She shrugged, smiling wistfully as she turned away. "Some things just aren't meant to be, baby," she informed me softly.  
  
"I don't believe that." I pulled her close to me, breathing in the strawberries and coconut, and it wasn't long before we were both fast asleep on that old, flattened mattress of mine that we had come to know so well.  
  
The next morning, I awoke in an empty bed. It wasn't an alarming circumstance; she was either showering or making us breakfast or something of the like. But there were no sounds of running water or frying eggs this morning.  
  
There was music...  
  
I drifted out of bed and started for the door, when I realized the music was coming from the living room. I closed my eyes, one hand on the doorknob, determined to recognize it. Yes—there it was: Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2. The only thing I'd ever enjoyed about those seven grueling, mandatory years of piano lessons.  
  
I didn't know we had a stereo.  
  
With one hand, I pushed the bedroom door open just a crack, and poked my head out into the living room. The coffee table was shoved over to one side of the room, and Mimi's small CD player had been dragged into the scene from downstairs. And in the center of the room, clad in stretch shorts and an oversized t-shirt, was my love.  
  
She was moving through an elaborate combination of ballet and modern and... whatever else dancers tend to do. Obviously something learned years ago, but now executed with the passion of rediscovery. Her attention was lost in the music; not once did she take note of my presence. Even the pieces of furniture in the room seemed to have halted, in their usual routine of doing nothing, to glue their eyes to her. She commanded the room, the movements, the music. I couldn't believe this was the same girl who once gave me a lap dance in a sleazy nightclub before I even knew her name...  
  
Instinctively, my hands moved towards my camera, resting on the dresser. My eyes never leaving her, I flipped the 'On' switch and stuck the lens through the small space in the door, and for seven minutes, I filmed.  
  
She never knew I saw her.  
  
I'd never seen anything so beautiful in my life.  
  
...And those were just the good memories.  
  
Never mind the rest of the downpour that was flooding my mind—the times we argued about Roger, about commitment, about where she'd been if she hadn't come home one night. I'd storm out of the loft, or she'd become purposely distant, just to drive me into a whirl of insanity and suspicions. Then later I'd drift into her room and discover an unsent letter on the dresser, telling me how much she loved me.  
  
Then I'd notice the ancient date at the top of the paper, and realized she'd written it to Roger.  
  
I'd always tried to dismiss it—tell myself Roger was in the past. She would always love him, and so would I. But I'd won in the end, I would tell myself. Little did I know that the end hadn't even come, and now that it had, we'd both lost. Dismally.  
  
My thoughts, suddenly darker, carried my steps to a far more deserted area of the park. Only minutes from the bustle of Fifth Avenue, but utterly abandoned. That was one of the amazing things about New York City. You could turn a street corner and find yourself in another world. And those new worlds never failed to fascinate me—I hadn't ever encountered the same one twice.  
  
Tourists were nonexistent here, and the only sign of life—if you could call it that—was some fifty feet away. The man I'd never had the misfortune of encountering directly, but nonetheless recognized on sight. A dark, hooded trench coat—very Lord Voldemort-esque; pockets bulging with little bags of white powdered poison. Or bliss. Depending on how you saw it. For months I'd watched helplessly as my roommate, my songwriter/musician/best friend, would return to him time and again; and later as his girlfriend—a small, crazy, charming little girl with dimples and big curly hair—followed in the footsteps he'd tried so hard to erase, and finally landed herself right into rehab.  
  
Today, the man was preying on another desperate weakling of an individual. But this one didn't look quite as lifeless as the typical junkie—he was fully alert, eyes darting wildly around him as he slipped the man a wad of bills and stuffed a little white bag into the pocket of his leather jacket. I couldn't see his face, but that mass of curly bleached-blond hair was a little too memory-evoking for my taste, and I started to walk away.  
  
And then I froze.  
  
My eyes clung to his distant figure for a last moment, watching as he nervously ran his hands through that bleached-blond hair—a gesture I knew better than any of my own subconscious habits.  
  
It was Roger.  
  
  
  
  
  
[So... nyah. :P Here ends my concrete outline for the story... unsure how exactly to continue... review if you want more—it would be very easy for me to drop the whole story at this point... ;)] 


	11. 

A/N: 06-01-02. Apologies for the update delay. My first real case of writer's block in about two years. Thanks to all who nagged. And to my evil beta, Dulcey, known to most of you as Anti-M/R, for the cliffhanger. :) And also many thanks to my honeybear for her diligent, however unsuccessful, attempts to bring me back from the dark side. :P Love ya babe!!!  
  
Oh, yeah, almost forgot. I own nothing. Except my Rent CD, and lots of Playbills and ticket stubs. Those have, uh, kinda inspired this. I don't own the Aladdin Hotel either (nor do I care to), but I *have* stayed there, and believe me... every bit is based on personal experience.  
  
This is for Becca, for finally writing The Kiss.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
  
  
11. [R]  
  
  
  
I wasn't using again.  
  
[A/N: There, we cleared that up. :P]  
  
It was the truth, so why was it so hard to just go and tell him?  
  
Oh. Right. Because he slept with my girlfriend, got her pregnant, and never told me. My best friend, ladies and gentlemen.  
  
I felt the man tug the wad of bills from my grasp as I turned my attention to the presence across the park. A slight, blond man in a fluffy plaid jacket and a blue and white scarf. At first I thought it was just coincidence—after all, where was the camera? He was already walking away when I spotted him. Quickly, efficiently, willing himself out of sight. But I knew he'd seen me.  
  
Mark always saw everything.  
  
And so I watched him walk away. I dutifully took a few steps towards him; at least I could say I tried. But he darted around a corner, and vanished. It was so strange seeing him. It had only been a week, but it was a lonelier week than any six months in Santa Fe.  
  
Sometimes it's harder to be apart from someone when they're so close.  
  
I shouldn't have cared. It shouldn't have mattered to me one bit, that just seeing me like this was going to hurt him so much. But it did. And that just made it harder. It shouldn't matter. I shouldn't care what he thinks. In fact, I should be purposely *not* caring about anything relating to Mark in any context. He betrayed me. End of story.  
  
There. That made it a little easier.  
  
In a few hours, it wouldn't matter anyway. I wouldn't matter. This little white bag in my hands wouldn't matter. Mimi wouldn't matter. Mark wouldn't...  
  
Yeah, he would. Whether I liked it or not, Mark would matter for as long as I lived.  
  
Which, by my calculations, as I glanced at the plastic bag in my hands... should be about three more hours.  
  
It made so much sense, ever since I woke up that morning at four o'clock and decided there was no way my life was going to get any worse, or any better. That's a rare point to reach. Once you reach it, you feel almost... privileged. Not many people do reach it, after all, and those who do... well, they're not around anymore. If I tried hard enough, it was almost peaceful.  
  
Who was I kidding? I was scared shitless.  
  
Shooting up was one thing, and frightening enough to think about now that I hadn't touched the stuff in two years. Suicide... that was another story. I'd already debated it all in my mind. I'd rationalized it, repressed basically every memory of April I'd ever had, and came up with a thousand reasons why I could—and had to—do this. I'd forgotten most of them by now, but that didn't matter.  
  
I'd been staying with Collins for almost a week, after one completely horrendous night at the Aladdin Hotel. An obscure place on West 45th, with purple walls in the lobby and lime green walls in the rooms. The carpet turned my feet black, the (shared, I might add) bathrooms were about a hundred and ten degrees, strange people would pound on the door at three in the morning, and I swear to God, there were bits of barley on the floor. As much as I adored my independence, it wasn't worth it.  
  
And as I sat here now, in the comfort of a bathroom with a much milder climate, my sense of déjà vu was growing just a little too strong.  
  
Two years ago... was it really that long?  
  
Just two years since I'd come home from rehearsal to find an ambulance in the parking space we never used. I'd bounded up the stairs to find my roommate talking frantically to the paramedics who were carrying a lifeless body out of the bathroom, which, from the doorway, was scarcely more than a red-stained room. Pools of blood were everywhere. I couldn't see beneath the blanketed form on the stretcher. I had no idea who it was. Through the sick, spinning sensation in my head, all I remember thinking was that, whatever happened... thank God it wasn't Mark.  
  
Then he took my arm and pulled me over to a corner of the room, and told me it was April.  
  
This would just bring everything full circle, and rather nicely, wouldn't it?  
  
For one solid hour, I remained seated on that fluffy maroon bathmat, with the needle and little plastic bag laid out neatly in front of me. Every few moments I would rearrange them. Straighten a wrinkle in the bag. Adjust the needle so that it lay perpendicular to the wall. Glance at my watch. Still two hours before Collins would be home.  
  
This was insane. I'd done this a thousand times, what was one more? What would I really be losing? Nothing. I'd already lost everything. My love, and my best friend. To each other, no less. My future—hell, I'd lost that years ago—just hours after April's death, when Mark, engrossed in another session of aimlessly pacing the floor of the loft, found her note taped to the bathroom door.  
  
I suppose the only thing I had left to lose was memories. But you can never lose those. Not even if you try.  
  
Last summer.  
  
We were celebrating our six-month anniversary at an amusement park. Well... to be entirely accurate, I'd made the stupid mistake of telling her we could go anywhere she liked, so she basically had to drag me by a leash to follow her into this madhouse. Screaming kids, the aroma of ketchup and funnel cakes, and loud, obnoxious roller coasters that I wouldn't get on if you paid me. Mimi particularly enjoyed this issue, making fun of the tough rock star who was afraid to ride the Scream Machine. I suppose I deserved the M&M she threw at me when I commented on how that was one ride I enjoyed just about every night.  
  
She was so divinely adorable when she blushed.  
  
At a hot dog stand, she halted, staring up at a menacingly black and red corkscrew-esque concoction. "Oh, baby..." she breathed.  
  
I looked up as one of the cars zoomed along the tracks, boasting a crowd of screaming teenagers—upside down, sideways, looping... "No WAY!" I insisted, dragging her away.  
  
"Come on, it'll be fun!"  
  
"Fun? Fun like the Twister? Fun like the Dragon's Tail? That kind of fun, huh?"  
  
She put on a pout. "Please?"  
  
I opened my mouth to whine about how I couldn't possibly resist her when she looked at me like that, but I never got the chance. A small hand was tugging on the leg of my jeans, and when I glanced down, a little boy about six or seven was staring up at me.  
  
I blinked. "Um... hi." It was blatantly obvious I hadn't been around children since... well, since I was one.  
  
"Hey." He pushed his glasses up on his nose, eerily reminding me of Mark. Or Harry Potter. It was hard to tell at this age. "Have you seen a lady with blond hair and a blue dress?"  
  
I glanced around. Was he talking to me? "Uh... no, sorry." I took Mimi's hand and started towards the Temple of Doom.  
  
"Roger!" she laughed, carelessly dropping my hand as she returned to the boy and kneeled down beside him. "Are you looking for your mom?" He nodded. "Well, we'll just have to go find her then!" she replied cheerfully, taking his hand and starting in the opposite direction.  
  
Um... hey, I'm *also* here, I felt tempted to call out.  
  
I followed behind them, sulking, feeling childishly excluded for the first hundred feet or so, until I finally began to watch her. Not in hopes of regaining her attention... but just to watch her. I'd tuned out sounds, but I saw the little kid laughing at just about every other thing she said to him. What on earth was she talking about? I wondered. How could one possibly have so much to say to someone that small?  
  
He clung to the end of her shirt sleeve as she led the three of us, slowly but surely, back to the park's main entrance... stopping for ice cream, a glow-in-the-dark balloon, and a picture with some idiot dressed up as a Sorting Hat. I'd never seen this side of her. I'd never seen her smile that way before. And as she walked along, holding his hand and listening to him recount his life story and giving him a piggyback ride... I became suddenly aware of a fact.  
  
This is what she would be like as a mother.  
  
In other words... perfection.  
  
It may have been my imagination, but when we finally located the blond, blue dress-wearing mother, and he ran into her arms... I thought I saw a tear in the corner of her eye.  
  
Mimi took my hand again, for the first time in two hours, leaning against me without a word as we aimlessly made our way over to the picnic area and sat down under a giant tree.  
  
I stared at her until our eyes met. "You're incredible," I blurted suddenly.  
  
The corners of her mouth rose, so slightly that I'm sure only I would have caught it. "Why?"  
  
"Just... *that*. The way you... with..." I was never good at this. "God, you're so great with kids."  
  
She stared a patch of grass beneath us and smiled. "I always wanted to be a mom."  
  
I placed a finger under her chin, joining her gaze with mine. "You would make the most amazing mother in the world, you know that?"  
  
She watched me, not blinking, not moving. And then, as those little tears sparkled once again the corners of her eyes, she leaned in and kissed me.  
  
It felt like so long ago... but it wasn't even a year.  
  
And now my ears were ringing.  
  
"This is Tom Collins. I'm not here, but... you probably figured that out by now. Leave a message."  
  
...Or, it could be the phone. I leaned over, pulling the bathroom door open just enough to hear the click of the answering machine.  
  
"Collins, hey, um... it's Mark."  
  
Oh, fabulous.  
  
"I... I saw Roger today. I mean, I didn't... talk to him. I just saw him. And he... he was..."  
  
Go ahead, Marky. Be a fucking tattletale and rat me out. It doesn't matter now.  
  
"God, I'm scared. Just call me."  
  
I scrambled off the bathroom rug and reached the answering machine in an awkward leap. I'd learned that sometimes, if you erase a message quickly enough, it's almost as if it never happened. Like it was all a voice in your head, and you just dreamed the whole thing up. Maybe you did. Once it's gone, after all, who's to know?  
  
I angrily punched 2 on the keypad.  
  
"Message saved."  
  
FUCK! What kind of possessed piece of shit was this?!  
  
As tempted as I was to rip the machine out of the wall and toss it out the window, a knock at the door converted all my frustration to fear. No, this was insane—it wasn't Mark. Mark didn't have a cell. Just the thought of him walking around in a business suit with a little black phone pressed to his ear was enough to put a small, however authentic, smile on my face. Which, in turn, put me at ease enough to remember that Collins was expecting a package today, and had asked me to sign for it.  
  
Fine. Deliverymen I could deal with. As far as I knew, they hadn't killed any of my girlfriends.  
  
I swung open the door, overly prepared with a pen in my hand, and froze.  
  
Maureen.  
  
No doubt she was as shocked as I was, but Maureen had a much quicker recovery rate than any of us. Not quite three seconds passed before she captured me in her embrace. Another two and she was pushing me aside, punctuating this with a reproachful whack on my arm.  
  
"What are you doing here?"  
  
"What are *you* doing here?"  
  
She cast me her 'Don't mess with me' look. It never worked. "How long have you been here?"  
  
"A week. And you've been here long enough already," I added, taking her arm and dragging her towards the door.  
  
Her jaw dropped as she pulled away. "Collins didn't tell us..."  
  
"I asked him not to. Mimi really had a great idea with the whole refugee thing."  
  
She opened her mouth to retort, but, miraculously, no sound came out. Maureen... speechless? Was it even possible? Wow. I was better at this than I thought. This was a gift. I'd have to let Mark in on this.  
  
Except... that was the old me talking, about the old Mark. The current me would remember that this new, deceitful Mark was the one who knocked up my girlfriend. The current me would remember that in a matter of hours, I wouldn't be around to give a damn about any of this. What a wonderful, terrifying feeling.  
  
And Maureen was still silent.  
  
The look on her face only hit me so forcefully because I recognized it. Not from her... from Mark. It was that same abandoned look that had radiated through his eyes when I'd told him I was leaving for Santa Fe. So completely betrayed. So undeserving of all the horrible things I'd said and done. And although I wouldn't exactly consider Maureen quite as undeserving... she was an actress, after all, and she was very good at creating an illusion of innocence.  
  
That had to count for something.  
  
Her eyes, usually so vivacious, were now nothing beyond lifeless blue pools. Tears sprang forward in a half-hearted attempt to make them shine again, but all it really did was drain the life from the rest of her body as well, and eventually, she collapsed on the couch.  
  
Why was I so good at making people cry?  
  
As much as I hated being trapped in the same room with her, I hated even more having to see her cry. "I'm sorry," I whispered, taking a seat beside her.  
  
Those empty, frightened eyes remained fixated on the wall. "I'm worried about him."  
  
Him. Mark. That's all anything was about, wasn't it? Poor Mark, he'd lost his love. Was I actually supposed to be more sympathetic? I suppose so; after all, it's not like *I'd* lost anything. I turned my gaze as far away from her as I could, hoping that might be a clue that he was the last person on earth I cared about discussing, or cared about at all. But she'd obviously expected this, and placed a warm hand on my arm.  
  
"Every time I try to talk to him, he..." She waited until I had no choice but to look at her. "Roger... he's refusing to get tested."  
  
I sprang from the couch. "Maureen—I don't give a shit, okay?"  
  
"You're his best friend!"  
  
"No," I corrected her quickly. "No, I'm not."  
  
She drew in a tentative breath, obviously suspecting this may be her last opportunity to get out a full sentence. "You have to talk to him."  
  
I found a sardonic laugh escaping my lips. "Forget it."  
  
"Roger—"  
  
"I don't fucking owe him anything!"  
  
"Oh!" It was her turn to laugh, although hers was slightly more genuine than mine. "Really, you don't? Are you sure about that? I mean, it's not like he's the one who kept you from going crazy after April died, or the one who took care of you when you found out you had AIDS, or—"  
  
"Or the one who killed my girlfriend?"  
  
Her eyes drifted shut, and she shook her head slowly. "You left her."  
  
"I came back!!" Why was this so hard for everyone to understand?  
  
"How were they supposed to know that?!" she demanded, leaping off the couch as well. "You can't just put a lifetime claim on someone, then take off and not expect them to move on!"  
  
I crossed to the door and graciously held it open for her. "I don't need this."  
  
She marched right over to me and pushed the door closed. "But he needs you."  
  
"And I needed *her*, and he's the reason she's not here!"  
  
"Jesus, Roger, you're acting like he meant for this to happen!"  
  
"That's it," I muttered, violently pulling open the door and holding it securely in place. "I'm not talking to him, I'm not convincing him to get tested—this is his own damn fault and I'll have nothing to do with it. And I think you should leave."  
  
Having channeled all her remaining energy into this one little argument, there was little hope that she would bother fighting back any further... and with that in mind, I released my hold on the door and stood back. Maureen remained, however, immobile.  
  
"I know you loved her," she said softly.  
  
Well, that made me feel *so* much better.  
  
"But I know he did, too."  
  
Strike two.  
  
It took everything I had to keep from fighting back. There was so much that could be said, after all. I would have relished bringing up all the terrible things she'd done to Mark in her time. But I said nothing, and she took a step towards me—see, this is why silence is fatal. It either shows vulnerability or proves you wrong. In my case, usually both. How very unfair that it took so much strength to do something that gave the appearance of so much weakness.  
  
Her eyes were pleading with mine, but I did my best to ignore it. I was good at that. "Please..." she breathed, all strength having left her. "If you could just—"  
  
"Go."  
  
And she did. She didn't even bother to shoot me a last, pitiful puppy-dog look that was such a trademark of hers. It was almost impossible to realize she'd actually left. Her exits were traditionally, and unfailingly, a spectacle. You always knew when she arrived, and you always knew when she left. And you were always happier at the latter.  
  
Finding myself alone again, I returned to the bathroom and snatched my items off the floor. My hands were no longer shaking, I no longer felt compelled to cram a thousand flashbacks into my last moments. And I was no longer afraid.  
  
Fighting always gave me a high, no matter who my opposition was. It was to a lesser degree with Mark, because he so rarely fought back. But I'd forgotten what a rush it was to get sucked up into an argument with Maureen; she was such a fireball. At any other time and place, it would have been almost a turn-on.  
  
And so I took that energy, got myself a spoon, and began melting down the powder. Suddenly it was all coming back to me—not the terror of addiction and withdrawal and HIV—but the familiarity. How easy it still was after all this time; the entire process felt like second nature. And this time, I wouldn't have to worry about those things like addition and withdrawal and HIV. This time, I wouldn't have to worry about anything at all.  
  
I held the needle up to my arm.  
  
This time... would be the last. 


	12. 

A/N: 06-09-02—::contented sigh:: I love you guys! The feedback is so very appreciated—please keep it coming, because I have no idea what the hell I'm doing with these last few chapters. LOL. Although I do have an ending in sight for this now, somewhere down the line, so I can continue writing with peace of mind. WOOT. And yes, I realize the clinic is probably not open on Sunday. I don't care. :P As for the end of last chapter... it will be explained next time, when I get back to Roger's POV.  
  
I'm getting tired of not owning any of these characters. ::sigh:: You'd think after all I put them through, I'd at least have *some* sort of claim on them...  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
  
  
12. [M]  
  
  
  
Leave it to Roger to distract me from everything that really mattered.  
  
Depression, despair, a nice miserable walk in Central Park. All forgotten at the sight of him and that... that person... that faceless angel of death in a dark trench coat with bulging pockets. He couldn't even leave me to wallow in my grief—no, he had no interfere with that, too.  
  
It was so easy to blame him this way. And it wasn't as though he didn't deserve it. How quickly everything spun a hundred and eighty degrees. For an entire week—any spare, disorienting moments that weren't spent missing her were spent in guilt. Guilt comes easily when you start screwing around with your best friend's girlfriend—not just for a night or a weekend, but for a good half a year.  
  
But everyone knows anger comes even easier than guilt. Anger comes easier than anything.  
  
But now... how relieved I was that everything was different... that the sight of him passing over a wad of bills for a bag of powder generated virtually no feelings of pity. None of fear, nor of worry, or even concern. Just anger. Anger at myself, of course, for wasting all this time with guilt—but mostly anger at him. I'd been in love—happy, really for the first time in my life—and he'd marched in the door and taken it all away.  
  
Everything sounded so much better that way.  
  
I didn't go home right away. I thought I'd intended to, but apparently my subconscious had plans of its own, and by the time I looked up, I was standing in front of the cemetery.  
  
I had little recollection of the funeral. I was lucky in that respect; repressing was one of my more valuable—and, I might add, polished—talents. Benny had made most of the arrangements, and for this reason (and others I'm sure we're all well aware of), Roger was markedly absent. At least once every day since then, I remembered so little of the whole event that I actually questioned my own presence there. Perhaps I had dreamed the whole thing up. Maybe I had even dreamed up her death...  
  
No... that would have been too cruel a trick to play on myself. I was all for self-destruction, but even I had my limits.  
  
The tombstone, however... now *that* I remembered. I plopped down on the freshly cut grass—allowing several seconds of silence to pass, in a vague hope that maybe I could make the entire gray block melt away if my eyes radiated just the right amount of pain. With one trembling hand, I reached out and traced a finger along the letters.  
  
Miriam Isabella Marquez  
  
1981-2002  
  
It was easier to look at than I thought it would be; it didn't take much to pretend it was a complete stranger. None of us had ever called her by her full name. I don't think half of us had even known it. But I had—of course I had. I knew what she'd wanted to name her daughter someday, and what she got for her fifth birthday, and what song she danced to in her first ballet recital. She once told me I knew her better than anyone else ever had.  
  
Even Roger?  
  
I didn't dare ask.  
  
I think just about everyone knew our relationship was the best thing that ever happened to us—but they didn't see everything. It wasn't perfect. She was always afraid of letting me get too close to her, for fear of breaking my heart once she was gone. And I was always terrified that Roger would come home, and the dream would be over.  
  
Obviously, neither of our fears had been unjustified.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
It was a moment before I realized I'd said this out loud... and that it didn't feel half as strange as I thought it would.  
  
"I'm so sorry..." I echoed, my vision instantly blurred by an onslaught of tears. "If I'd never written those letters, we never would have ended up on the couch, and I wouldn't have kissed you, and you wouldn't be gone now, and..."  
  
And I never would have known what it felt like to be so madly in love. Had it been worth the price?  
  
"...And..." And would anyone ever hear a word of this? "God, I'm so scared. I can't do this alone. We talked about it... remember? The night we roasted marshmallows over the stove and you burned a dish towel... You told me if anything ever happened, you would come with me to the clinic and you'd hold my hand and never leave me alone for one second, and we'd get through it together."  
  
How little it took to bring back that night... I'd been hunched over my camera and the VCR and a pile of tapes all day long, working against a deadline. She knew this, but she also knew I couldn't resist her... and that was obviously more interesting to play around with. By eight o'clock, she marched into the room with a giant bag of marshmallows, almost wearing that tiny white tank top I loved so much, and announced that if I spent one more minute in front of that camera, I'd be sleeping alone for a month.  
  
My voice had fallen to a whisper sometime during the reflection of that memory, and I was surprised to find I could barely hear it myself.  
  
"You told me... not long ago... you were so scared of losing both of us. But it's me—I'm the one who's lost both of you."  
  
I couldn't imagine verbalizing this—somehow it was even harder to do when I knew no one was listening. When no one was listening, it was easier to hear it myself. And right now, all I wanted was to forget it.  
  
"I saw Roger today. He's..."  
  
Any words beyond that would have been miserably in vain. If by some miracle my words would even reach her, then surely, by the same miracle, she would already know exactly what Roger was up to. Then again, that theory could very easily be my latest escape mechanism, hard at work to keep me in denial. It wasn't that I didn't need to say it; it was that I couldn't. I just wasn't ready to believe that my best friend, after two years of being perfectly clean, had begun writing his own death sentence—slowly, and painfully—yet again.  
  
I jumped to my feet—even the thought was too much.  
  
My eyes darted over the ground, fumbling, in tragic futility, to break through the layers of earth below that separated us. She was really so close... so close...  
  
My feet pulled me further away until I felt I could breathe again, and I eyed the distant gray stone once more.  
  
"How could you leave me alone with this?"  
  
My strength was gone. I turned on my heel and left the cemetery.  
  
I hadn't been home for five minutes before I found myself hunched over the kitchen counter, punching '4' on my speed dial. I had gotten used to ignoring the big '8' on the message display screen. All of her girlfriends from the club had been calling incessantly in the last week, wondering where in God's name she was, and why she hadn't shown up for work, and was she okay? I hadn't had the heart to erase the messages... or to call back and tell them the truth.  
  
Collins' answering machine picked up, and I stammered a few words about seeing Roger, before my usual conclusion—"Call me"—and hung up.  
  
One hour later, a knock at the door broke into my little world.  
  
Perhaps it was Roger, I mused, crossing the room. Maybe he's come to apologize. Maybe he's come to let *me* apologize. I didn't even know which one would have been more inappropriate. At this point I was just willing to hope for *anything* but Maureen. I couldn't take another one of her lectures. And they weren't her usual lectures, in the traditional sense, full of obnoxious demands and relentless nagging. They were pleas, so desperate and cautious, from a side of her I hadn't seen since we broke up. A side that had been absent for so long, I'd assumed it had flown out the window right along with her heterosexuality. But as usual... I had been wrong.  
  
I pulled the door open. I was in luck—according to my theory. It wasn't Maureen.  
  
I promised myself I wouldn't do it, but I found myself searching his eyes the way I used to, years ago, when he would come home late at night, or early in the morning, and I would study his face to determine whether he'd been clean that night. More often than not, I was disappointed. But never wrong. I could always tell, whether I wanted to or not. Call it a talent, if you must. I called it a curse.  
  
And although anxiety was the obvious factor behind those eyes that had turned so cold on me in recent weeks... that's all there was. Just fear, like everyone else. Not a shred of evidence that he'd been shooting up, even once.  
  
Or maybe I was just losing the talent.  
  
He looked down before speaking. "Can I come in?"  
  
Without a word I stepped aside, trying furiously to decide which one of us had less right to be here. Neither, it seemed; it was almost as if we didn't live here anymore. He strode confidently through the door, but stopped when he reached the middle of the room, and shoved his hands in his pockets.  
  
"I, uh, just came to get some of my stuff."  
  
I nodded instinctively, then rethought this claim. "Roger... you don't have 'stuff'."  
  
His eyes met mine again, narrowed—the fear having been very easily replaced by bitterness. I couldn't blame him for that. "Fuck off, Mark," he muttered before stomping towards his room.  
  
It was true, though. 'Stuff' would have been his guitar. And that was somewhat... gone. Unless he planned to uproot his bed or dresser, I couldn't imagine what else he had that required relocating. Unless, of course... he was actually moving out.  
  
I waited by the kitchen, leaning against the counter, until he reappeared in the doorway of his room, a pair of jeans in one hand, and a lyrics notebook in the other. "By the way," he announced, "I'm not going to put up with Maureen barging in on me and complaining about you anymore. So just do what she says."  
  
A sickening feeling stirred in my stomach. Maureen had talked to him. She'd seen him and complained to him and didn't tell me, and... God, this was wrong on so many levels. She—Maureen, with whom Roger had been diametrically at odds from the day they met—had managed to charm him into tolerating one of her speeches... and I couldn't even get him to look at me.  
  
I blinked. "What?"  
  
"Go," he instructed. "Go to the clinic and get tested. I don't need any more of her goddamn lectures."  
  
It all began to fall awkwardly into place now... Maureen told me I had to get tested, I refused, so she complained to my best friend. My ex-best friend. Asked him to talk some sense into me. Who'd have thought he'd actually do it? Wasn't he supposed to be deliberately indifferent to me right now?  
  
"That's why you're here, to convince me to go?" I asked, hardly expecting a 'yes,' but at least hoping it would provoke some sort of reaction...  
  
"No! I don't give a shit about that!"  
  
...Yeah, like that.  
  
He tossed his jeans and notebook into a very diminutive pile. "Just do it so she'll stop bugging me. This isn't my problem, and I don't want to be involved. So... go. Stop being a baby, make the fucking appointment, and just do it."  
  
My eyes narrowed, studying him more closely. What might happen if I actually retorted with honesty?  
  
"No," I announced.  
  
His eyes shot upwards, flashing. I'd never defied him like that. "What?"  
  
"You can't just march in and start telling me what to do; that's as bad as Maureen."  
  
God, was I ever asking for it.  
  
He ventured one step towards me, then retracted it. "Look—you got yourself into this, all right? God, Mark, I... what the fuck were you thinking, taking that chance?! I mean, I might have expected this from her, but *you*..."  
  
I felt my voice leaving me. "Expected what?"  
  
"This, everything! Manipulating you into this because she was lonely—I can't believe how selfish she was! Not giving a shit that she'd most likely end up killing you… kind of ironic that it turned out the other way around, huh?"  
  
And that's when my voice left completely.  
  
Why did this always happen to me? Every time I knew I should say something, something important and something unkind and heartless and, nonetheless, true—every time, I would just shut down. I knew everything I wanted to say, I just... couldn't... say it...  
  
"Don't ever talk about her like that again."  
  
Then again, I never failed to shock the hell out of myself. It had been barely breathed—after all, my voice really was quite gone—but it was there, nevertheless; a truth. Exactly what I'd wanted to say. And he heard it, and stared at me.  
  
"April's gone because of me, Mark."  
  
Where had this come from? The tone of his voice had so altered that I felt like I'd been transported back to another time in our lives... a time, not even so long ago, when we'd been allowed to speak to each other in soft voices, or scared voices, or kind voices... when we hadn't been reduced to resenting each other, each with our own respective reasons, for losing the woman we loved.  
  
I pulled my gaze away from his. "Don't do this. April wasn't your fault, you know that. I know you're just—"  
  
"No, you don't fucking know anything!" his voice roared, having jumped back to the present. "She didn't get AIDS from the drugs. Did you know that? She was so careful, she used her own needles every single time."  
  
"Roger, accidents happen—"  
  
"No. Not for her. She was completely safe. She got it from *me*."  
  
His eyes, so full of fire, nearly burned right through mine when I turned back to look at him. "What?"  
  
"She got it from ME, Mark. I was so sure I was fine; that it could never happen to me—because I was too chickenshit to go get tested. By the time I did, it was too late."  
  
I half-expected a grand, final orchestral note to punctuate this, but I suppose in the end, silence is always louder.  
  
He'd never told me that.  
  
He shrugged, shaking his head in defeat, and tossed another notebook of lyrics onto his pile of stuff, doing his best to reclaim that air of utter indifference. I saw right through it, of course. Roger had never been good at expressing true emotions, but he was even worse at hiding them. He was worried about me... why was that so hard to believe? This was his traditional way of showing it, after all. This was always his way. He'd yell and blow up at me because he hated having to be so vulnerable, but that was my clue that he still cared.  
  
I steadied my voice and turned away. "I think you should leave."  
  
"Oh, fine, you know what? Fuck what you think. This is ridiculous." He marched over the counter and seized the phone, furiously punching in numbers.  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
He turned until his back was facing me, and spoke into the receiver. "Hi, yeah, I'd like to make an appointment—the name is Mark Cohen—"  
  
Ohhh, he was a devious one, wasn't he?  
  
I lunged over the counter and managed to grab the phone from him, slamming it back down on its hook. I never would have managed such a feat if he'd been even half-expecting it, but I don't know if it had been worth it after all—the shock only infuriated him further.  
  
"God damn it, Mark!"  
  
"You're not my mother, I don't need you to take care of me!"  
  
How many times I'd heard those very words from *his* lips... ironic, wasn't it?  
  
"You have to deal with this. It's not a fucking death sentence, it's just something you have to go through! I did it, April did it, Mimi did it—we survived."  
  
I knew I would regret saying this, but... "We?"  
  
He shoved the phone aside and approached me. "Look, either you have it or you don't. Getting tested isn't going to change that."  
  
Was this supposed to make me feel better?  
  
I felt tears welling up behind my eyes, ready to leap out at any time. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Not even in my wildest nightmares was it ever supposed to be like this. I'd never imagined a day without her smile, a night without her kiss, a walk in Central Park without her hand clasped in mine... no, I was never meant to go through this alone. I wasn't strong enough. Everyone knew I wasn't. Even her. *Especially* her...  
  
I let the tears fall, silently, as I leaned against the wall and allowed myself to slump to the floor. A few seconds later, I heard the phone being lifted off its hook. The silence was so great that I could even hear each of the numbers emit their slightly varying beeps as he punched them in.  
  
"Yes, hello. I'd like to make an appointment for Mark Cohen, please."  
  
More words filled the air as he politely and quietly answered their questions. What was the nature of the appointment? Had I been tested before? I closed my eyes, too weary to fight back. This wasn't happening.  
  
"Tuesday? Sure. Three o'clock will be fine. Thank you."  
  
The phone was returned to its resting place, much more gently this time, and I opened my eyes to find him back across the room, gathering his things into a more portable pile.  
  
"It's on West 29th, by the..."  
  
He stopped as our eyes met, and we both knew we were thinking the exact same thing. I knew where it was. He knew I knew where it was. I was the one who dragged him there in the first place, years ago, never imagining I would be in those shoes. I'd been the one to go there every week to pick up his AZT when he was too depressed to do it himself.  
  
"Never mind."  
  
I pulled myself to my feet as he opened the door with one arm, the other laden down with clothes and notebooks. "Roger—wait." I was almost surprised that he turned around; now I wasn't even sure what to say. "Would you..."  
  
He adjusted some of the items in his arms and waited for me to continue, but I never did. "Would I what?" he finally demanded.  
  
"Would you come with me?"  
  
Something flashed across his face... sympathy? No, that would have been too much to ask for. "You're not a baby," he announced. "You can do this yourself."  
  
No... no, I can't, I can't do this myself, and I need you there because I'm absolutely terrified.  
  
But by the time I found the nerve to put those thoughts into words, he was already halfway down the third flight of stairs. 


	13. 

A/N: 06-29-02-Ah... back to Angst after my fun romp with exploding cans of whipped cream... ::sigh::  
  
And I'm back from NYC... wow. What a trip. I videotaped Daph's concert, and audiotaped Rent, with Matt, Kar, Maggie, Chad, etc... the crappy thing is, the tape didn't get Act I past Another Day. ::sigh:: But it got all of Act II. So whoever wants a copy of anything, email me. (I'm broke though, so you'll have to pay for shipping and the cost of the tapes. LOL.)  
  
Disclaimer: After thirteen chapters, I'm finally out of clever ways to say it. So sue me. :P  
  
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13. [R]  
  
  
Storming out had officially lost all appeal.  
  
I made it down the stairs, proud of myself for not turning back to look at him. I knew if I did, I would crumble and I'd never go through with this. Three blocks later, I was huddled by a trash can, furiously emptying the contents of my pockets. Needle... powder... note. The whole morbid package.  
  
This was not the plan. I was supposed to pack up my supplies and take them out of Collins' apartment. That's all. While I didn't see how any of it would matter once I was gone, Collins was still my friend-quite possibly the only one I had left-and at the very last moment, I decided I wasn't about to let him come home and have the consequences of my misery to deal with.  
  
Right, that was it. I wasn't procrastinating or anything. I wasn't scared.  
  
I would go to the loft, do a final good, selfless deed and convince him to go to the damn clinic, and then I would find a place all to myself and make my world disappear. Someplace where no one would find me. I didn't want to be found, I decided. Not by him, not by anyone. Not even Mimi. I didn't believe in such pseudo-spiritual bullshit as afterlife. If there was no future and no past, then there sure as hell wasn't anything beyond.  
  
Besides... vanishing without a trace would be a better punishment, wouldn't it? Keep him wondering for awhile. Drive him crazy. He deserved it.  
  
Didn't he?  
  
Was it a crime to fall in love?  
  
Well, if I'd had my head on straight, my knee-jerk response would be yes. *Yes*, sometimes, it is a crime to fall in love. This was one of those times. They say you can't choose who you love... but you can certainly choose what you do about it.  
  
And so... I should have expected him to pine away after her, never breathing a word of his feelings, on the chance that she might be alive today?  
  
Oh, for Christ's sake, whose side was I on?! Of *course* that's what he should have done. If it weren't for him, she'd be here, and she'd be with me, and she'd be happy.  
  
Keep telling yourself that...  
  
On this note, perhaps someone could explain to me why in God's name I was now sitting in the waiting room of a little clinic on West 29th Street, filling out forms and wondering if he was going to show up at all.  
  
This was it. I would stay long enough to make sure he actually went through with it, and then I'd be out of his life. Simple. No strings attached.  
  
I arrived fifteen minutes before three o'clock, and had been dutifully completing the forms ever since. But it wasn't until I reached the section on "Medical History" that it struck me. I was filling out his paperwork... more specifically, I *could* fill out his paperwork. This was pathetic-I knew every fucking detail about him. Age, height, weight, social security number, medical conditions, allergies, prescriptions, history of past injuries...  
  
Past injuries... God, that was a fun night.  
  
It was our first New Year's as roommates-before Benny, before April... just us. And Maureen, although I tried to block out that fact as often as possible. She wanted to go to some wild club to ring in the New Year, and Mark didn't, so she dragged a new friend of hers, Joanne, instead. I'd been too lazy to scrape up a date, so we ended up stuck in the loft, alone, with little more than a refrigerator full of booze, and our own respective frustrations.  
  
Mark's bed had broken the week before, so he and Maureen had been sleeping on the sofa bed in the living room. Apparently, once I'd been able pry out of him exactly what the hell happened, he confessed that she'd been getting really into Tantra, whatever that was, and had them trying out all these crazy things in bed. I'd lasted about four seconds with a straight face before falling over in laughter. He threw a few raisins at me, and I had to promise never to bring it up again.  
  
(I've brought it up every New Year's since then.)  
  
"All right," I announced, plopping down on the lumpy sofa bed mattress beside him with my fourth beer. "Let's see. First time... well, officially... I guess it would be third week of high school. Jennifer Marbury. You?"  
  
He buried his face in a pillow and groaned. "Third WEEK?! I hate you."  
  
"Come on, your turn!"  
  
"Fine. Second semester of my sophomore year."  
  
I raised an eyebrow, playfully punching him in the arm. "That's not so bad, Marky."  
  
He sighed and bit his lip. "College. Sophomore year of *college*."  
  
I choked on my beer and burst into hysterics.  
  
"Shut up!" he whined.  
  
"Oh, God, that's priceless," I sighed. "So who was it? Maureen?"  
  
He glared at me. "NO. Some girl named Lydia."  
  
"And was she as fucked up as Maureen is?"  
  
He rolled his eyes. "God, you would not believe the stuff she has us doing now. I mean, just look at my bed!"  
  
I set down my beer with a smile, shaking my head. "She's insane. What the fuck *is* Tantra, anyhow?"  
  
"I dunno, some ancient Hindu shit. Like-this one that broke the bed..." He shifted positions in his seat so he was facing me. "Okay, you be Maureen-"  
  
"Whoa!" I leapt off the mattress. "Use a pillow, man."  
  
"Okay... yeah." He set down what had to have easily been his eighth drink, and grabbed a nearby cushion, pulling himself to a standing position-but just barely-on one end of the bed.  
  
I laughed. "All right, get down; you're going to fall and I'll be too drunk to help you up."  
  
A devious smile crept across his face. "No. I'm perfectly sober. Look." He stood straight up, trying his damnedest to keep from falling over, and grabbed the pillow. "Okay? So then, she-"  
  
And with that, his balance became an unattainable thing of the past, as he collapsed in a twisted lump on the bed-which would have generally been a safer place to land than, say, the floor... except that sofa beds can be exceptionally, and unpredictably, temperamental.  
  
This particular one fancied a self-fold-up technique whenever attacked by a strong impact, such as a drunk filmmaker-and within seconds, the entire bed had turned back into a couch. A couch with a very large, obstructing lump protruding from the middle.  
  
The lump moved.  
  
"...Mark?"  
  
"Mmph."  
  
I scrambled over to the couch, doing my best to pry it open... but alcohol and uncontrollable laughter can be a bad combination when performing a feat that required such strength as this one. But at last, with an insane amount of effort, I managed to pull out the mattress and free him from its entanglements.  
  
"Are you okay?" I chuckled, barely half-serious.  
  
He looked up at me and blinked. "Not so much, no."  
  
"God, you are such a dork," I sighed. "Can you stand up?"  
  
"Seeing as I think my leg is broken, no."  
  
"Oh, shit. I'll go call 911."  
  
"'Kay," he whimpered.  
  
Mark can turn into *such* a baby when he's sick.  
  
As I leaned over on the kitchen counter with the phone to my ear, on hold as usual, I glanced back over at him. "This sucks, you know," I mock-pouted. "Now I'll never get to see whatever it was she made you do."  
  
He grinned and glanced at the still twisted mattress around him. "Actually, that was close enough."  
  
That was a long time ago.  
  
Opting to be a complete smartass, I scribbled "Got folded up in a sofa bed" on the blank lines, and placed the paper back with the others. As I pulled myself from the chair to hand it back to the receptionist, my gaze turned to the doorway... where he stood, watching me.  
  
Refusing to let myself be the lesser man, I took the initiative and marched over to him. "Here," I offered, shoving the papers in front of him. "I filled these out. So now you can't chicken out or anything."  
  
His eyes remained glued to mine for several seconds before curiosity lowered them to the papers, which he finally took from me and scanned distractedly... until spotting the line I'd just jotted down. What may have been the hint of a grin appeared briefly at the corners of his lips, but vanished so immediately that it had probably been my imagination.  
  
"...Okay then," I continued at his lack of response, and brushed past him toward the door.  
  
"Wait." I felt a frightened hand latch onto the sleeve of my jacket, and I spun around.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I..."  
  
There it was again. That look of surprise; a deer caught in the headlights. The second time in as many days that I'd shocked him by actually waiting. By not running out. By giving him one more chance to speak, even if he hadn't expected it. That wasn't how anything had ever worked between us. We'd fight, I'd start to leave, he'd fumble helplessly to stop me, and I'd ignore him. And then I'd be gone.  
  
I never stopped to hear him.  
  
I wonder how many unspoken words I've missed.  
  
"Where are you staying?" Somehow I got the feeling, from the look of confusion that suddenly spread over his face, that wasn't what he'd intended to say at all.  
  
"Collins."  
  
"...Oh."  
  
Well, if *this* was what I'd been missing all that time, I guess I didn't have much to be regretful about after all.  
  
"Um..." He fumbled now for endurance, evidently realizing what he'd meant to say. "Look... putting aside the fact that you hate me now, if you want to come home..."  
  
Well, that was bold. I had to credit him for that. I almost felt obliged to credit him by actually consenting. "Thanks," I responded simply. "But no."  
  
He was getting better at hiding the pain. I suppose it doesn't take long. My words had come out so much more blunt than I'd intended. It seemed like everything did lately. I hadn't just turned him down; I'd allowed him to take the blame for it all. Mimi... everything. Which was only fair, really, but easy for me to interpret as manipulative. If I had any part in the blame, he'd have to work up the courage to be merciful. But if he placed the blame entirely on himself, then I was just the bad guy who couldn't find it in his heart to forgive.  
  
A tricky little tactic-subconsciously inherited from Maureen, no doubt.  
  
He stared at the perfectly groomed carpet. "I'm sorry."  
  
I let myself out of the building without a single backward glance.  
  
For one hour I remained hunched in the front seat of my car, twice forced to refill the meter and once nagged by a policeman. I never budged one inch from that parking space. I intended to, of course, every time I looked up at the building and remembered why I was here. But I couldn't make myself do it. I couldn't make myself abandon him like this, I thought, every time I looked up at the building and...  
  
...remembered why I was here.  
  
Why *was* I here? If I did in fact hate him, as he claimed, I should be at the very opposite place of wherever he was at any given moment. My emotions shouldn't extend beyond fury and resentment and a complete indifference to all aspects of his well-being.  
  
Then why did they?  
  
I have no idea how long he'd been standing some feet outside my window before I took notice of him. The expression on his face was so priceless I had to fight from smiling. Damn him. He couldn't decide whether to knock on my window, wave, climb into the seat beside me, or walk away. And, in truth, I don't think any one of those options would have been fully appropriate.  
  
I rolled down my window. "You can get in," I announced impatiently, as if this should have been the most clearly obvious choice.  
  
He scurried over to the passenger side, climbed in, and shut the door in one prompt movement, staring ahead out the windshield.  
  
The loft was exactly how I remembered it... well, not exactly. It was how I remembered it when I last left it, but to be honest, that wasn't really how I wanted to remember it. I wished I could remember it the way it used to be... with a random towel or tank top hanging out Mimi's window to dry, or the smoke from our illegal wood-burning stove snaking its way through the sky above the roof.  
  
No towels, no tank tops... no smoke. Not today.  
  
I pulled up to the main entrance and stopped the car, not bothering to turn off the engine. If I turned off the engine, that would mean I'd have to come up. Or at the very least, make conversation. Mark, however, seemed to take as little notice of this as was humanly possible... and kept his gaze firmly glued to the windshield.  
  
Fine, then. "So..." I began idly. "When do you get your results?"  
  
"Two weeks."  
  
"Mine took three."  
  
"I know."  
  
Figures.  
  
Trivializing this was making me sick to my stomach. It's as if we were talking about car repairs or a ballgame or... anything. Anything but this. But we weren't, and the contrast between the actual subject and what could have been the subject was so severe that I was finding it difficult to breathe.  
  
"Thanks for..." he began, and stopped.  
  
Please, I begged silently-don't say it.  
  
Wait. I had a mouth and a voice. I could stop him before he uttered another syllable. "Yeah."  
  
Oh, very profound, Roger.  
  
And finally, just as I was beginning to think he'd melded with the seat and become a permanent fixture of the car, he gathered his coat and climbed out. I refused to watch, imitating his fascination with the windshield, but deemed it appropriate to at least listen. So I listened for the door of the main entrance to squeak open and fall shut. And it didn't.  
  
A guilty, tentative tap on the passenger window-obviously the last thing he wanted was to trouble me any further. Fine by me.  
  
I leaned over and rolled down the window. "Um... I forgot," he informed me. "I have to give you something." [A/N: Oh hush, slash fans-not THAT kind of something. :P]  
  
Give me something? God, spare me-some lengthy apology letter, or some lyrics notebook I'd left? Anything to get me talking to him again, right? "Mark, I really don't-"  
  
"It's from Mimi."  
  
We were in the loft about fifty seconds later... the first twenty of which were spent in a staring contest, with me deliberating whether or not to believe him, and whether or not I should yell at him for ever speaking her name in front of me. After everything he'd done... I think it would be a rather reasonable request.  
  
I stood just inside in the doorway, and he seemed to have finally caught on to the fact that no amount of staring, silence, or awkward moments was going to make me crumble. So he scrambled around the apartment, looking for whatever it was he had to give me so urgently, and finally ducked into his room.  
  
Something from Mimi was in *his* room?  
  
...Of course. Where else. Had I completely forgotten the last two weeks? For God's sake, they were lovers. And that still didn't feel any less strange to admit than it had when I first found out.  
  
My eyes drifted to his open bedroom door. Some of her clothes were still folded neatly on the dresser. Probably ones that would usually be hanging out the window to dry. A chill went down my back.  
  
He emerged from the room, triumphant, clutching a videotape in his hand, and held it out to me.  
  
I looked from the tape to him. "What the hell is this?"  
  
His face grew shrouded with... what was that? Offense? Now that was just funny. I loved how his eyes spoke for him-'After all these years of living with a filmmaker, you can't fucking recognize a video when you see one?'  
  
"It's a tape," he replied.  
  
"Yes, Mark."  
  
"She gave this to me a couple months ago." He looked down slowly, his nerve seeming to shrink with every word. "She said to give it to you, if you ever came back and... if anything... ever... happened to her."  
  
Oh, God.  
  
I felt the color drain from my face. "Well, what is it?"  
  
"I... I didn't watch it."  
  
"Did she tell you not to?"  
  
"Not... in so many words. I just figured she wouldn't want me to."  
  
"That's some serious self-control."  
  
"No. Respect."  
  
I see. He caught on faster than I gave him credit for. I was being a jerk about this-and was entirely unwavering in that decision-so he was going to be one right back. His attack was far crueler than mine, though. Two short words, and he was able to come off as the victim. The poor, loving, devoted boyfriend who'd been left all alone in this big empty world without his lover. But I wouldn't fall for that.  
  
My hand moved to snatch up the video... suddenly my only possession of value. I eyed the television and VCR across the room, and-with these resources-was struck with a compelling curiosity. I knew I'd never make it back to Collins' apartment without seeing this first.  
  
Mark watched from that same spot on the floor as I silently waded through the pile of cords and plugs, unhooked the equipment, and dragged it all into my bedroom along with the tape.  
  
*My* tape.  
  
Finally... something that was mine, and only mine. Something I wouldn't lose to my best friend if I went out of town for a few months.  
  
I looked back to him once more. His eyes were glued, jealously, to the tape in my hands. Could I blame him? All these months of guarding it-him and his damn "respect"-and he'd never been able to watch it.  
  
Well... ha.  
  
On that victorious note, I vanished into behind my door. His lost face across the living room floor was all I could see as I popped the tape in the VCR. 


	14. 

A/N: 07-15-02--I wrote this chapter uh... awhile ago, so here are my very outdated notes from then. :P  
  
06-30-02--Aw, thanks, guys. I didn't like the last chapter as usual. :P Apparently that's always a good sign. LOL. Well, this is being written entirely on major inspiration, since Becca is doing such wonderful things with AIY and keeping all my M/M needs met. :)  
  
Disclaimer: ::looks around and yawns:: Huh? Oh. Right. Nothing is mine, except for the long-running hamster joke. That belongs to Dulcey and me.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
14. [M]  
  
It was the longest twenty minutes of my life. God, was it really only twenty minutes? I could have sworn on my life that he was in that room for at least a good five or six hours...  
  
Stop right there, Mark. Your life is not something you want to be swearing on at the moment.  
  
I hadn't even remembered the video at all until that day, which I'm sure was subconsciously intentional. Just remembering it was bad enough... but actually giving it to him? Well... it finalized her death. I could still pretend it was all a dream, until now. Once that video went from my hands to his, not only did it signify my acceptance of the fact that she was gone... but also... it meant she was no longer exclusively mine.  
  
I didn't realize I could be such a possessive asshole.  
  
It's not all that fun; I wonder why Roger finds it so appealing.  
  
The night she gave me that tape wasn't one I chose to store in my immediate library of priceless Mimi-related memories. It wasn't that it was an overly traumatizing experience; discussions of death--hers, mine, anyone's--wasn't exactly a taboo topic of discussion in this household. But maybe, deep down, it hit me harder than I realized at the time. Maybe that's why I'd repressed it... why I'd never thought of it again until now.  
  
She'd caught the flu (or something resembling it) a couple weeks before Roger's return, at the end of March, which had been an unusually cold month. The virus didn't hang around for more than a few days, and by the end of the week, she claimed she was feeling well enough to make our monthly trek to the clinic to pick up her AZT, go for ice cream, and hang out in Central Park. But I insisted that she stay home. She still had a bit of a temperature, and I wasn't about to risk letting anything happen to her.  
  
That evening, I returned home with a fresh supply of AZT, a hot dog straight from Central Park, and a stuffed hamster puppet I'd picked up at FAO Schwarz. We had a running joke that she reminded me of an adorable little hamster; a conversation obviously originating in one of our wildly laughter-oriented, post-sex discussions.  
  
I dumped my plastic bags on the kitchen table and looked around. "Meems?"  
  
No response.  
  
Maybe she was in an anti-nickname mood. "Mimi?"  
  
Silence.  
  
"...Pookie?"  
  
A voice from behind me spoke up. "Pookie??"  
  
I spun around to find her only inches away from me, and I slid my arms around her waist. "It just felt like a 'Pookie' moment."  
  
And for this I was treated with one of those soft, melting kisses... followed by a highly amused grin. "If you ever call me 'Pookie' again you'll be sleeping alone for a month."  
  
Now why hadn't I thought of saying that to Maureen?  
  
"You know," I sighed, fishing through the items on the table, "that threat would be much more effective if you didn't use it every time you want something." I found the cardboard carrying case, and held it out to her as a peace offering. "I brought you a hot dog."  
  
She smiled and took the box. "You're forgiven."  
  
"And this." I handed her the hamster.  
  
"What the--oh my God." She took one look at it and burst out laughing, finally collapsing on the couch in hysterics.  
  
I sat beside her and pulled her into my arms. "You feeling better?"  
  
"I told you before, I'm fine." She cradled my hand in hers and held it up to her face, dropping a light kiss on my fingers. "And... I hope you don't mind, I borrowed your camera."  
  
Mind? How could I possibly mind? I was immensely flattered. No one ever took much of an interest in my work... I can't remember anyone ever wanting to borrow my camera for anything. Well, except Maureen, and I wouldn't let her. (For the record, she'd wanted it to videotape some certain bedroom activities between her and Joanne. I don't think my camera could have handled that. All right, all right--I don't think *I* could have handled it.)  
  
"What for?" I asked.  
  
Although it was obvious she wanted to say something, she just gave me a small smile, patted my hand, and quickly disappeared into my room. Before I could react, she returned... much more slowly and deliberately... with a single, unlabeled video grasped protectively in her hands.  
  
In the same cautious manner, she recovered her seat on the couch beside me and handed me the tape. I smiled at her, leaned over, and reached for the VCR remote.  
  
"No--" She stopped me immediately, placing a hand on my arm. "I mean... oh. Um... baby, I'm sorry, it's not like that. It's..."  
  
I blinked. "What?"  
  
"It's for Roger."  
  
Of... course it was. Was I supposed to know what to say? Wordlessly, and--I hoped, expressionlessly--I placed the tape back in her hands.  
  
"No..." She pushed it back towards me gently. "I want you to give this to him if... if he ever comes back."  
  
If you asked me, this was just unnecessarily painful. "Why can't you give it to him yourself?"  
  
And undoubtedly, that came out much harsher than I'd intended, seeing as a multitude of tears were starting to collect in the corners of her eyes. "It's for..." Our gazes broke, and she turned away. "If I'm not here then."  
  
I swallowed the lump in my throat. I hated when she talked like that. "Why wouldn't you be here?" I demanded.  
  
Her eyes met mine again, refusing to blink, and for a moment I doubted whether she intended to speak at all. "Because I have AIDS, Mark."  
  
They were the last words I remembered from that day. I vaguely recall making some comment about promising to give it to him... but that was hours later, after we'd been curled up on the couch together in that same spot, intermittently brushing away each other's tears.  
  
The same couch I found myself on now. I hated this couch. It had been lonely enough that day, but unbearably so at this moment.  
  
The twenty minutes, however debatable their exactness may be, came and went- -and when they were over, Roger's bedroom door was thrown open and he came storming out.  
  
Seeing as the past twenty minutes had been utterly silent, this sudden disturbance startled the life out of me, and I looked up quickly--just in time to see his door bounce back on the hinges, and his angry figure vanish from the loft.  
  
He was gone.  
  
What the fuck was on that tape?  
  
Oh, God. Why my mind was cruel enough to entertain this possibility was beyond me, but nonetheless, I found myself wondering if I'd even given him the right tape. I couldn't count all the things I'd filmed that I knew we would never let anyone else see. Most of my videos were unlabeled. The way I identified them was by where I kept them in my room. I know, I know-- obsessiveness at its worst. But maybe one had been misplaced...  
  
I darted into his room. He hadn't even bothered to turn off the television-- the empty blue screen cast an eerie glow across the room, and the set was still very busily humming with the sounds of activity. Plopping down on the floor, I pushed open the flap on the VCR.  
  
The tape was still there.  
  
He hadn't taken it with him--he hadn't even hid it from me. Was it really that bad?  
  
Not at all to my surprise, my hands were shaking as I pressed Rewind and waited as the VCR's humming grew louder and my stomach grew more and more unsettled. I would just watch the first few seconds. Just to make sure I'd given him the right tape. If I hadn't, I'd find the right one and figure out a way to get it to him. If I had... then I would turn it off. Immediately.  
  
The humming stopped as unsteadily as it had begun. I pressed Play.  
  
The camera faded in on a chair that had been dragged into my room. I'd never filmed this before in my life.  
  
It was most definitely the right tape.  
  
Mimi soon appeared in a corner of the screen, approaching the chair and taking a seat as she peered into the camera with a skeptical gaze. "I don't know if this is working..." I heard her mumble to herself. "Is this thing on?"  
  
I closed my eyes and smacked the front of the VCR, luckily hitting the Stop button along the way. Feeling it safe once more to open my eyes, I did so, and was greeted with the familiar glowing blue screen.  
  
I couldn't do this.  
  
No. More accurately... I couldn't *not* do this.  
  
Swallowing my pride... and guilt, and anxiety, and--heaven forbid-- respect... I reached out, slowly, consciously punching Play with one finger, and sat back against the foot of the bed.  
  
And may God have mercy on me...  
  
"Hi." Her face lit up the entire room, far more than any blue glow ever could. "I think it's working now. I love the fader button, that thing kicks ass. Um..."  
  
I do, too. It's one of my favorite camera features.  
  
I allowed myself to fully take in the image--if I went to hell for this, I was going to make it worth the trip. Her hair was pulled back slightly in some strange Mimi-esque version of a ponytail. She had on the same tank top I remembered from that day--the bright red one with the word "hottie" on the front in silver letters--and that faded, typically too-tight pair of jeans.  
  
My eyes stung with tears. Why was I doing this to myself?  
  
"I guess I should hurry up with this, since Mark will probably be home soon." She shifted positions in the chair until she was resting her chin on one knee and nervously examining her fingernails. "Um... Roger... I guess if you ever see this, you'll already know about... you know. Mark. And me. Us... God, that still feels weird to say."  
  
Yeah, it did. Even to this day.  
  
"And maybe it won't break your heart... maybe I'm being really egocentric here, assuming you wouldn't move on and find someone else. Of course you would. And you should. You deserve that. But... on the off chance that you're still in love with me... I mean, if you ever were--I mean... fuck, now I'm just rambling."  
  
She certainly was. I loved that about her.  
  
She lifted her head, eyes gazing into the camera the way I remembered when I would film her from across a room of crowded people. She'd look into my eyes, hidden behind that lens, and make me feel like we were the only two people in the room.  
  
But this time, she wasn't looking at me. Not really.  
  
"Roger... I don't know what happened to us. I used to think we could make it through anything. I thought we had that special something, you know? And maybe we did. Maybe we needed more than that... I just wish you could know that I love you. I always have."  
  
I'll ask again: And I'm doing this to myself, *why*?  
  
"I guess that wasn't enough to save us..." Her voice trailed off, and so did her gaze, but it was back as quickly as it had drifted. "I don't know if I'll ever see you again. God, I don't even know if you're still alive. But I want you to know that, no matter what's happened with Mark... I still love you. And I never wanted to hurt you."  
  
I should not have pushed Play. It wasn't too late. I could still stop it...  
  
"And... I'm scared that you're never going to forgive Mark for this. And he doesn't deserve that, because he hasn't done anything wrong. I probably wouldn't be here without him. And he doesn't talk about it a lot, but I know he misses you so much."  
  
She was right... I never talked about it. I missed him like crazy. He was my best friend. The way he left us both--I never got over it. But I'd had no idea that she knew.  
  
"Everything's so different now," she whispered, the tape barely picking up her voice. "You won't understand, I know. Baby, please don't hate me for this... but I--I'm in love with him."  
  
I felt my hand moving, independently of my will, to hit Stop on the VCR for a second time.  
  
The room fell silent except for the inevitable, incessant hum of a functioning television set. I began to wonder if this is what took Roger so long--having to stop the tape every five minutes to keep from screaming or throwing things.  
  
I'd known she was in love with me. Of course I had. The night we both confessed that 'love' had evolved to 'in love' was one I would never forget. But hearing it now... God, it would be so much easier if she hated me. Devastating, perhaps, but easier--I'd have no reason to keep missing her as desperately as I did.  
  
After a few labored, deliberate deep breaths, I hit Play once again.  
  
I was such a masochist.  
  
The familiar setting filled the screen, and I watched as she stared into my eyes... No. Not my eyes. Just the camera. If anything, Roger's eyes. Waiting for... a response? Offering time for a reaction, I suppose. Almost as if she knew the viewer would have to stop the tape at that.  
  
'The viewer'? God, what was this, a fucking talk show? There was only one viewer--one *intended* viewer, that is--and it was Roger. I was merely an intruder. Nothing she said was directed at me. This was worse than listening in on a phone conversation or reading her diary--and I knew that. And for once, it felt good to be as selfish and heartless as Roger so easily managed to be.  
  
Actually, it felt like shit. How did he do it?  
  
She took a deep breath, drawing me back to reality, if that's what this was. "That's... not what I wanted to tell you though. I have to tell you something, and it's something I don't think you can forgive me for. All right--maybe it's something I can't forgive *myself* for."  
  
Although feeling guilty for doing so, I let out a sigh of relief. This obviously had to be something exclusive to their relationship. Something I think everyone had suspected--such as, she cheated on him with Benny, or some confession of the like. Something I could finally take in as an observer, and not have to have any part in.  
  
"I think I'm pregnant."  
  
And *I* think I just lost all feeling in my arms.  
  
Perfect timing. Right when I would have needed to stop the tape.  
  
"I don't know for sure yet, and I just can't bring myself to take the test and I wish you were here because I can't tell Mark and if I am then he has to get tested for HIV and..."  
  
The run-on sentence fell to a muddled close as she broke off in tears. I'd beaten her to it, though, spotting the first one drop onto the sleeve of my sweater.  
  
She'd known.  
  
All right--she'd suspected. It was the closest thing to knowing.  
  
"Is this my punishment?" she demanded of the camera, suddenly infuriated-- most likely growing frustrated with its lack of response.  
  
I knew that from far too much personal experience. A camera really does seem like a person almost, until you realize it will never give you an answer. At least it seemed that way to me; it reminded me so much of myself. Always observing, silently, taking everything in, permanently imprinting it all. The only difference was that a camera's memories could be erased. I only wished destroying my own was as easy as tearing up a reel of film.  
  
"This is what I get..." she mused, nodding slowly, "for letting you walk out of my life when I knew I could have stopped you. For letting Mark risk himself for me when I was so terrified all along that this would happen."  
  
"No." That was me. Talking to a two-dimensional screen now. Inching towards it, I touched the image in front of me, letting my fingers slide down the screen at the same pace as the tears trickling down my face. As if it would make her real again... as if it would keep her from crying...  
  
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "That's all I wanted to tell you. And please... take care of Mark. Don't let anything happen to him. I'm sorry. Just don't forget that I love you."  
  
For the next few moments she remained in the chair, occasionally glancing at the camera, but for the most part, trying to avoid its mechanical, unforgiving stare. But at last, she climbed out of the chair, marched over to where it was set up, and turned it off.  
  
The screen returned to blue.  
  
In an almost involuntary fashion, I pulled myself to my feet, replaced the remote control exactly where it had been, left his room--careful not to turn off the television or close the door--and collapsed on the living room couch.  
  
Would he really go back to Collins' this time? Or would he go back to Central Park? To addiction and ruined lives. And this time I wouldn't be there to get him through it all, and there was no way in hell he would survive it on his own, because I knew him better than he knew himself, and he knew me better than I knew myself. And while that produced the strongest possible type of friendship, it also gave us the power to destroy each other.  
  
And ourselves in the process...  
  
This frightening train of thought was cut short as the door to the loft creaked open.  
  
It was the first time in what felt like forever, that he'd entered the apartment without practically breaking down the door. There was nothing obnoxious or threatening about his arrival now. If it was even describable at all, it would have to be almost... timid.  
  
He guided the door to a quiet close before turning back to me. "Have you been there this whole time?"  
  
Say yes. Say yes, say yes, say yes. "Yes." Good.  
  
How nice--and sickening--a feeling that is, when you can finally see visible results from your efforts of dishonesty. It was getting so much easier to lie...  
  
I stood up, pushed my glasses up on my nose, and stuffed my hands in my pockets. "What are you doing here?"  
  
He shuffled his feet against the rug. "Um... I was thinking about what you said."  
  
I half-smiled. "I've said a lot of things. Most of which I probably shouldn't have."  
  
"Collins said I could stay with him as long as I wanted, but... I mean, y'know, his place really isn't big enough for two people."  
  
I nodded. I knew exactly where he was headed, but if he wanted it, he'd have to damn well ask me himself.  
  
"So, I was thinking, maybe I could..."  
  
Maybe you could what, Roge?  
  
"I mean, just until I find somewhere else..."  
  
Oh, for God's sake. This would go on all day. I'd forgotten who I was talking to, hadn't I? Helpless was the last thing he'd ever want to appear as. I had to give him a break. I didn't want to, but unfortunately, the sensitive artist inside was reminding me that I did in fact have a heart, whether he deserved its benefits or not.  
  
"Yeah, Roge," I answered quietly. "You can stay here."  
  
He brought his eyes to meet mine, and nodded tentatively. I remembered the gesture well--his unique, pride-induced, Roger-esque way of saying thanks.  
  
Sadly enough... I'd missed it.  
  
  
  
[Three more chapters to go, I think. We'll see. I have Plans. :)] 


	15. 

A/N: 08-16-02--Sincere apologies for the delay. Hopefully next time won't be as long. I've missed you guys, and this story; it's good to be getting another chapter up. I don't know if I'm happy with it though; it's been a long time since I've worked on this story, I'm afraid maybe I've lost the feel for it. Tell me what you think. I'd go back and read the last chapter or so first, if I were you--that's what I had to do. :P  
  
The usual disclaimer. ::bursts into song:: "I don't expect you to be mine..." Sigh. I love Matt.  
  
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15. [M]  
  
The loft hadn't been cloaked in such a mass of tension since... God, since when? Since he came back from withdrawal, perhaps. Maybe even going back as far as when Maureen left me. But something was noticeably different at those times. What was it...?  
  
Ah, yes. Roger didn't hate me then.  
  
He had disappeared again, however temporarily, to retrieve his few belongings from Collins' apartment, and the silence was far from comforting. Mimi's voice was beginning to echo in my head, the same way it had for months, after we'd had an argument and she'd made a particularly poignant remark, for which I couldn't possibly have formulated an impressive riposte. And so her words would haunt my thoughts interminably for the rest of the day, to the point where I was useless for any aspects of work, conversation, or daily routine.  
  
But then she'd creep into my room, silently wrapping her arms around my waist, letting her lips slide over my ear as she whispered apologies and endearments. And with those soft reassurances, the relentless echoes would vanish.  
  
But no matter how long I waited today, sprawled out on my bed and somehow still waiting for that door to ease open... it never did.  
  
How would the echoes ever leave me now?  
  
*He hasn't done anything wrong...*  
  
Personally I was a little unclear on that, but willing to go along with it.  
  
Even if she was right--even if I had been the perfect innocent; the loving, supportive boyfriend... it was all shot to hell now. I'd intruded shamelessly on the private words she'd intended only for Roger. Something she never meant for me to see. The one single, small part of her life I was requested to stay out of... and still I couldn't do it.  
  
The opening of the front door interrupted this typically troubling reflection. Again. How unfair that an inanimate object could have such control over something powerful enough in itself--my thoughts.  
  
When I overcame the bitterness of having been distracted, I looked up to see Roger stumbling through the door with a duffel bag full of God knows what... and I suddenly wondered where it had all come from, seeing as he'd originally stormed out with nothing in his hands but clenched fists.  
  
I slowly crossed the room, picking up a stray backpack he'd dropped upon his entrance, and followed him silently into his room, where I placed it on the floor.  
  
He glanced up at me, most likely resenting me for making it so difficult to ignore my presence. "Thanks," he mumbled.  
  
I tried to leave, but my feet had other plans--namely, to stay firmly planted on the floor. "Um... are you done with the TV? I was going to work on some--"  
  
"Yeah, sorry. Take it." He attempted half-heartedly to unplug a few cords, but gave up when I knelt down to finish the task myself.  
  
I thought twice before hauling the VCR back to the living room... and first gently removed the tape from its slot. I avoided looking at it at all costs as I placed it on his dresser. As though, were I to make eye contact with it, Roger would see the anxiety in my face and fingerprints on the tape, put two and two together, and realize what I'd done.  
  
But when I turned back to look at him, he was far too busy pretending to page through a notebook.  
  
How strange he looked, without his guitar. It hadn't always been in his arms, of course, but... it was there. A necessary presence, an attachment of either himself or the room he currently occupied. He was different without it. Less, somehow. But far more transparent.  
  
I wondered if I was more transparent without my camera.  
  
At this consideration, an uneasiness crept over me. I scampered out of the room, closed the door, and snatched my camera off the kitchen table, where it had laid untouched for nearly two weeks.  
  
Roger's bedroom door never reopened that night. I kept hoping that it would, for reasons beyond my comprehension, or even the desire for comprehension. Certainly it was too soon to hope or try for any resolution between us, if such a feat was even possible... but just being around him, having another life form around the apartment... it was a comfort. Shuffling in the next room; the sound of water running for a shower that wasn't mine; the refrigerator door closing across the room. Sounds that reminded me of a time in my life when... when...  
  
Well... when I felt alive.  
  
I waited until midnight, fiddling with my camera, only marginally diverted by the fact that I finally had the energy to hold it again. But he never left his room.  
  
And even all those sleepless hours later, when I pulled myself out of bed for a three a.m. snack and spotted him out on the fire escape... it still didn't qualify, in my mind, as having left his room. It was as though he'd been locked away behind his door, and then somehow magically transported out the window. But there was no real change. He was as inaccessible to me now as he was then. It's not like I could actually say anything. And I wasn't used to that--discovering a clearly troubled individual perched just outside the window, and knowing I couldn't go to them.  
  
He would be, forever and always, my closest link to her. Which, right now, was a curse. With that image of him hunched over the railing, watching the dark, empty lot below... it was her birthday all over again.  
  
It hadn't been a particularly cold night for January, but even if it had, I don't think any of us would have noticed. There was a heated loft and chocolate cake and Twister and laughter. And, scarcely an hour after everyone had left us to ourselves, there was...  
  
There was us. Just us.  
  
We'd fallen asleep together when it was all over, that much I was certain of. But when I was pulled from slumber some hours later by an unknown force, I was alone. There were certainly enough hints that I hadn't dreamt it all; the scent of her perfume on the pillow, on the sheets, on me... The small tangle of long-forgotten clothes at the foot of the bed, spilling over onto the floor...  
  
Not one moment of it had whirled by in a blur. My mind was still spinning, of course... but my heart, which seemed to be functioning independently of my mind at the moment, had retained every last detail.  
  
It was nothing like I imagined it would be... not that I'd imagined it all that often, seeing as she'd been Roger's girlfriend. It was a side of her I'd only been allowed to see over the last month, and was still utterly, hopelessly entranced by it. There were no ritualistic Harlequin novel acts of ripping off clothes or falling to the floor in a fit of passion. It was all silent--at least to us. There was no traffic on the streets or wind howling on the other side of the paper-thin walls. Not to us.  
  
To us, it was all a slow, lingering perfection... each moment simply melting into the next... until, at last, everything became still. The moments after became a fusion of whispers and touches and soft, random kisses, almost taking on an anonymity in the darkness. After our heartbeats had finally slowed to normal, she nestled herself against my side and mumbled something unintelligible but obviously in Spanish. When I asked her what it meant, she lifted her head, shot me one of those seductive grins, and replied, "Wouldn't *you* like to know..."  
  
[A/N: The fluffiness is killing me; someone make it stop. :P]  
  
I felt around her side of the bed in the darkness, but the only warmth beneath my hands was the sheet that she'd obviously abandoned only a short time ago. Pulling on a thick sweatshirt I'd inherited from Roger, I climbed out of bed and stumbled my way to the living room.  
  
Maybe it was the few remaining sprinkles of glitter in her hair that caused the light to reflect at just the right angle... or maybe it was simply that I was drawn to her presence, whether I was even aware of it or not. But whatever the reason, I spotted her instantly. The window in front of the fire escape was cracked open, and she was seated outside on one of the steps leading to the roof.  
  
I pushed open the window and crawled out after her, with somewhat more difficulty than I suspected she'd had, being significantly smaller... and found myself at a loss for words.  
  
She looked up at me with a smile, but it wasn't the smile that warmed an entire room. It was the non-smile; the kind you use when you don't feel like smiling at all, but love someone too much to break their heart with a frown.  
  
I normally would--and probably should--have begun whining about how fucking cold it was out here, how she was going to catch pneumonia, and how crazy she was. But in point of fact, it actually wasn't that freezing, it was obvious she wasn't about to move from that spot, and upon further musing of her intentions, my impending flow of words shifted from panic to apology.  
  
"I--I'm sorry," I stammered. "Did you want to be alone?"  
  
She shook her head, holding out her hand. I took it, crawling under the blanket that was draped across her legs, and snuggled against her.  
  
"You're going to freeze out here," I added, unable to resist pointing it out in some way, shape, or form. She tried to smile again, but the attempts were growing increasingly less convincing. I touched her cheek. "Are you okay?"  
  
Taking my hand, she laced her fingers through mine and nodded silently. This was not convincing enough for my standards.  
  
"...Mimi?"  
  
Her eyes met mine, which was more than I'd have hoped for. "I know... he's the one who left," she began cautiously. "But... I still feel like, somehow... I'm betraying him."  
  
I didn't see that coming.  
  
Swallowing the anxiety in my throat, I forced out a string of coherent, rational words. "What are you saying?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Do you regret--"  
  
"No." She shook her head solemnly, placing a finger under my chin and drawing me close to her. "Not for a second."  
  
There was a 'but' coming. And I was going to stop it. I had to...  
  
Her hand dropped back to her side, and she slowly turned away. "I just need some time to think. It's overwhelming."  
  
I found myself nodding, pulling myself to my feet, even taking a step towards the window... when I knew all I should have been doing was trying to convince her that this was right. It had to be. I loved her and she loved me, and Roger wasn't here. But I knew there was nothing more I could do. I looked at her again, huddled under the blanket on the stairs... and she seemed smaller. "I love you," I said--at this time, the only words I trusted.  
  
Her lips formed an echo of the words, but any sound was drowned out by the wind.  
  
For the next half hour, I lay in bed, tossing and turning and not even bothering to try to sleep. I had no trouble admitting that I was scared of what she would say when she came back. The fact I refused to confess was that I was even more afraid she wouldn't come back at all.  
  
Her silhouette suddenly appeared in the doorway, and I watched it transform from a black shape into a person, crawling onto the bed until our faces were mere centimeters apart.  
  
And then she kissed me.  
  
At last we broke apart, our hands tangled in each other's hair. I took a deep breath, wondering if the three words resonating in my head, begging to escape, would ruin everything.  
  
"Are you sure?" I whispered.  
  
She nodded, brushing her lips against mine for reassurance. And there was no doubt in my mind, from that moment on, that we would ever leave each other's side.  
  
I stared at him now, through the half-open window... wondering how long it would be before he realized he was being watched. It wasn't a reaction I was particularly eager to be present for-and without a word, I returned to my room. But this time, I knew he'd still be around the next morning.  
  
~ ~ ~  
  
[The Next Morning.]  
  
"Goddamn it, Mark!!"  
  
My eyes slid open and I peered over the top of the blanket, waiting for the footsteps that would inevitably lead to my room. Silence. Silence. A sneeze? More silence. ...Ah, there they were. Angrier than the ones I was used to, though.  
  
The door of my bedroom swung open, and taking its place was Roger-a box of lotion-kissed Kleenex in one hand and a half-eaten bagel in the other. "What the fuck is this?" I knew I wasn't going to have time to answer, so I continued to stare. "Since when do you buy *egg* bagels?!"  
  
I yawned. "Since... forever," I mumbled, only half-alert. To me, at this hour of the morning, six months was close enough to 'forever'. I'd started buying them after Roger left. Mimi loved egg bagels; she detested 'normal' bagels. It wasn't a hard decision. I'd started buying egg bagels.  
  
A final, protracted yawn of awakening, blended with Roger's death glare, brought me to full consciousness.  
  
Mimi was gone.  
  
Roger was allergic to eggs.  
  
"Shit," I noted. "I'm sorry. I, uh... I'm going shopping today. I'll get regular ones."  
  
"Fuck that," he declared, blowing his nose loudly and emphatically like a two-year-old. "*I'll* go shopping."  
  
"No," I stated, and from his raised eyebrow and obviously increasing temper, I chose to elaborate. "You don't know where the pie crusts are."  
  
"...*Pie crusts*?"  
  
"Um... Mimi loved them. Just... plain, doughy pie crusts. She kind of... got me hooked on them."  
  
His death glare had definitely shifted, but the nature of the shift was yet to be determined. I couldn't tell if it was more hateful than before, absolutely befuddled, or painfully wounded at the very mention of her. "Well, *you* don't know where the cashews are. I got hooked on them in Santa Fe."  
  
"Fine. So come with me."  
  
"Fine."  
  
And this, embellished with a silent, three-feet-of-space-between-us-at-all- times stroll to the Food Emporium, was how we ended up where we were now, planted firmly in front of the great glass doors of the frozen food aisle, peering in at the boxes of TV dinners. Roger held his bag of cashews firmly in one hand, and I clutched my pie crusts in a similarly protective manner.  
  
"We only have four bucks left," I reminded him, slowly and dully, for the thousandth time.  
  
"I want the pizza."  
  
"Well, I hate frozen pizza. I want the fettuccine Alfredo."  
  
"Well I DON'T! It's girly and pretentious!"  
  
At any other time, this might have been laughable.  
  
"Fine." I handed him his two dollars and kept my own to myself. "Buy a chocolate bar or something."  
  
"I don't *want* a-"  
  
This was not your usual tongue-tied pause. Roger wasn't one to get tongue- tied in an argument. In a moment of truth; an emotional heart-to-heart conversation; yes. In an argument... practically never. I looked up to find his gaze focused neither on me nor his woefully unattainable pizza, but rather on something behind us.  
  
I looked.  
  
It was... her.  
  
It was all her, everything about her. To the rest of the supermarket she was simply a beautiful Latina, scarcely out of her teens, I'm sure... a random, attractive shopper. But to us, she was Mimi incarnate. The spitting image. The hair, the smile, the eyes. The familiar stretchy tank top. The way her jeans embraced her body so perfectly that I'd been too often unable to resist walking up behind her and sliding my arms around her waist.  
  
But I couldn't do that now. Because... it wasn't her.  
  
This woman possessed something Mimi never had. A child. A little girl, perched happily in the front of the shopping cart, playing with a can of soup and smiling at us. She couldn't have been more than a year old; and what was so striking about her was, despite her uncanny resemblance to her mother... she had blue eyes.  
  
*She was two months pregnant...*  
  
I couldn't help (and honestly, I did try; these thoughts were far from pleasant) wonder what would have happened if Mimi was with me now, and if our little girl would have had her mother's dark, curly hair and my blue eyes and loved playing with cans of soup and smiling at strangers in the frozen foods aisle...  
  
Something told me, very strongly: yes. Yes, she would have.  
  
But I would never know for sure, would I?  
  
I felt a hand on my shoulder. It had to be my imagination. All of this had to be. A trip to the Food Emporium couldn't possibly be this traumatizing.  
  
"Look, uh, Mark..." No... this was definitely not my imagination. But his voice had softened distinctly from the whiny, pizza-obsessed tone I remembered from just moments ago. "Let's go, okay?"  
  
I shook my head, letting my pie crusts fall listlessly into our scantly loaded shopping cart, and tore away from him--out of the frozen foods aisle, and out of the Food Emporium.  
  
The loft hadn't even settled into its quiet, deserted state yet--the kind of state it assumed when having been unoccupied for some time. It was a quiet, languid state that was always welcoming to return home to, especially when you felt like being alone. But we'd been away scarcely twenty minutes, and that state had not yet settled in. The kitchen still smelled of egg bagels and orange juice, and arguments, and in only seconds I found myself collapsed against a wall by the couch, my eyes burning with a wetness that hadn't yet divided into the hundred tears I knew were imminent.  
  
I'm not sure what made me think I would have the place to myself for very long. Perhaps I'd naively assumed that Roger would simply give up on me, on us, on everything, and return, defeated, to Santa Fe.  
  
No such luck.  
  
A key turned in the lock, and he appeared some seconds later--an entrance much less rough and enraged than mine had been minutes before. I glanced up, eyeing the items he unloaded gently on the table--pie crusts, cashews... and fettuccine Alfredo.  
  
I looked at him, but said nothing.  
  
"Mark..." he began quietly, "You can't keep doing this." I remained mute. "She's gone. You--you can't fucking go on like this. You may have let me get away with this shit when April died, but I'm not that tolerant. And in case you haven't noticed, I was in love with Mimi too. You're not the only one suffering."  
  
I let a bitter chuckle escape my lips immediately, voiding any meaning or significance these obviously difficult words may have contained. "Easy for you to say," I commented. "You at least got some sort of goodbye."  
  
"What the hell are you talking about?"  
  
I gestured wildly, frustrated to no end that he hadn't a clue what I was talking about, and even more frustrated that I had yet to confess this. "The video..." I concluded lamely.  
  
I could literally feel his eyes narrowing in complete bewilderment. "...What?"  
  
"I'm sorry!" I exploded--in truth, apologetic only for my own selfish guilt in the matter. "I watched it! Okay? You just *left* it there and I know it was yours and she never meant for me to see it and it was completely selfish and idiotic of me to barge in on the one thing she'd ever kept from me, but I did it, and I'm sorry."  
  
I waited for it all to come crashing down--screaming, throwing things. The usual. But it didn't. Only silence.  
  
"Well... Jesus, Mark, didn't you watch the whole thing?"  
  
My voice began to shake. "Of... course..." Or, maybe, "I... don't know?" Yeah. Maybe that.  
  
"You turned it off after she said she loved me, didn't you?"  
  
"Y-yes..." Yes... yes I had. But I had the very distinct feeling that I shouldn't have.  
  
No sooner had the syllable left my mouth than he was stalking off to his bedroom, returning almost instantly, and holding out the tape. "She made a whole segment just for you, you know."  
  
My eyes fluttered hesitantly to the tape in his hands, ashamed to even look at it. "Wh--what--why didn't you tell me?"  
  
"I knew you'd end up watching it. I just didn't think you'd actually turn it off the first time the screen went blue."  
  
I hated how well he knew me. Sometimes it was acceptable. Even helpful. Even amusing. But now... I hated it. And I hated him for it.  
  
I took the tape from him. *My* tape, now. He'd had his turn with it, and although I didn't deserve it, there was something on this that was meant for my eyes only. And there was no way I would even try to resist.  
  
Slowly, I stepped toward the television and reached for the plug, intending to drag it to my room just as he had done. But, almost immediately--  
  
"Don't bother," he offered bitterly, grabbing his coat and keys off the table and opening the front door. "Oh, and by the way." We both turned around, realizing that the awkwardness in catching one another's eye had long since been surpassed. "I didn't watch it."  
  
And with this sanctimonious finale, he was gone.  
  
  
  
[Three chapters left. Next chapter: In which Marky gets his test results back. Woot. :)] 


	16. 

A/N: 09-13-02-Uh, yeah, so this is still from Mark's POV... as was last chapter (...she announced somewhat belatedly :P). I'm used to alternating; ack, I hate discontinuity... but this is the only way it would work. And trust me. I spent hours reorganizing the last few chapters. LOL. Anyhow. Onward.  
  
Got a break from school now until October, so hopefully I can punch out the remaining two chapters of this in that time. We'll see. Reviews help. :) (Honestly. Just tonight I decided to go check my reviews, and there happened to be a new one for last chapter, which was lovely and unexpected. Anyhow, it inspired me to finish the last three pages of this. So, yay. LOL.)  
  
Disclaimer: ::walks out onto empty stage in front of hushed audience; looks around; shrugs:: Enh. ::returns backstage:: :P  
  
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16. [M]  
  
You'd think the guilt would have evaporated by now. I had, within in a five- foot radius of myself, a television, VCR, and tape... and I was completely allowed to make full use of all three. No strings attached. It was my tape; hell, it was my apartment. I was about to see something I was actually *meant* to see. Guilt should be as far from my mind as happiness had been, of late.  
  
But of course, we all know it wasn't. This wasn't really mine. It shouldn't be. I'd stolen straight from the cookie jar before laying eyes on the plate that had already been set out for me. I didn't deserve it.  
  
Then again... she didn't deserve to die. But she was still very, very... gone.  
  
I slipped the tape into the VCR, sighing resignedly as it hummed and clicked and whined its way to Play. The familiar blue screen, and then, from nowhere, an image and a face and a voice that were far too real and alive to fit into this melancholic loft.  
  
"Hey..." She smiled weakly. "Roger, honey... turn it off now, k? I need to say something to Mark." Waiting. "Um... seriously." Another fleeting smile. "Okay. Um."  
  
I inched toward the screen. I wanted to be close to her for this. As close as I would ever be again.  
  
At first, she simply stared at me, her eyes piercing a straight line right through the lens into mine-or, where mine usually were, which was directly behind the camera. That's why I loved filming her more than anyone else. Not simply for the juvenile fact that she was my girlfriend and I was madly in love with her and wanted to capture her beauty and charisma on film. It was because of the way she broke down that barrier of camera and lens and falseness. I could still hide behind it-she knew I often needed to-but when she looked through it into my eyes... it was as though she were hiding with me. Like there was no camera at all, not for us. It was our own world. Our own private escape.  
  
Even now... I could still feel it.  
  
The smile appeared in Cheshire Cat fashion: out of nowhere, and lighting up the whole room. It was the smile she saved for crowded rooms, when the closest we could be was a glance across the sea of unfamiliar faces.  
  
"Hi, baby," she began softly. "I... uh, I don't want to make this all dramatic and morbid, so... I really don't think I have to tell you anything important. Everything I want to tell you, I tell you every night. Though not always through words..." she added with a wink. "So... I'm just going to leave you with this." A wider smile this time, accompanied by... blushing? Impossible. Not my Mimi. "Okay." Deep breath. "Do you remember that time you got me really drunk... or actually, I got you really drunk... anyhow, we both ended up plastered, right? And I let you, um... take those pictures? You know, the ones with..."  
  
...High heels, a feather boa, and nothing else?  
  
She grinned. "Okay, like you'd ever forget that."  
  
Honestly, woman.  
  
"And then I, uh... sobered up the next morning, and stole the camera from you and told you I threw out the film, and you whined all day?"  
  
I wouldn't exactly call it whining. I *sulked*. Severely.  
  
She looked down at her hands, which were fidgeting nervously with the edge of her shirt. "I didn't throw it out. I got it developed. They're in the bottom of your sock drawer."  
  
Thank God for my childish security habit of always sitting with a throw pillow on my lap, because it would have been very painful if my jaw had hit the hard floor of the living room when it dropped like lead from the rest of my face.  
  
Her gaze lifted, and it became quite obvious that the blush was real-not some camera coloring fluke. I couldn't believe it. I'd never seen anything so adorable. And-though it was hard to tell for sure, seeing as I'd completely melted to a puddle of mush and sentiment right there on the living room floor-she smiled. "I love you, Mark."  
  
To this day, those words still sent a shiver down my back every time.  
  
"And... there was one thing. I mean... we always said whatever happened, we'd be in it together. But... if you're watching this... I know that means you're alone. And I wanted to say I'm sorry. If anything happens to you, baby... if you get sick... and if it's my fault..." Her voice grew unsteady, a long-repressed threat of tears drawing near. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry..."  
  
Oh, God.  
  
She knew.  
  
Sheknewsheknewsheknew.  
  
And she wouldn't say it. Not ever. Because she was scared. I knew she was. I always knew she could get that scared. Not many people did, but I did, because I saw sides of her that no one else did, and...  
  
She knew. She knew she was pregnant. She knew I'd have to get tested. She knew... all of it.  
  
"I think I hear footsteps on the stairs," she whispered. "I've got to go. I love you. I swear I do. You'll never know how much."  
  
She scrambled from the chair and turned off the camera. I summoned my remaining energy to fast-forward for a few minutes, on the dwindling off- chance that there might be anything else to see. But there was only blue screens, and snow, and then... more snow.  
  
This was it.  
  
I'd just experienced the last time I would ever sit in front of her and wonder what words would leave those beautiful lips.  
  
She was gone.  
  
My fingers fumbled ineptly with my shoelaces, I reached for my sweater on the edge of a chair, and on a last cautious thought, I relocated the tape to my bedroom. In a drawer. My sock drawer. Maybe someday, I would be able to watch it again. Maybe someday I would be able to look at those pictures. God knows I wanted to. Without a doubt all the guys (and many of the girls) in New York would too if they knew about them.  
  
But today was not that day.  
  
I didn't spend that afternoon searching for escapes, or petty diversions, or a lonely seat in a café, watching the world walk by me in that oblivious yet completely aware manner that New Yorkers seemed to possess. I just found an alley, and I sat down, and breathed in the smells from the Chinese restaurant across the street. It was good for me-it held no memories. We'd never eaten there. We always ordered from the one on 17th. They had better rice. And don't try to tell Mimi all rice is the same. It is not. She convinced me.  
  
However, as much as I wished I could detest the thought of returning to the loft... I missed it. I was in no mood to wander with no purpose. I was neither angry, nor additionally guilty, nor resentful or grief-stricken. No words echoed. It was all so blank... and I needed the comfort of my own home. As comforting as a place like that could be, anyhow-a place that had been home to more death, fights, passion, and pain than it was worth.  
  
But it was still home to *me*, too.  
  
I slipped my key into the lock, turned, and opened the door. Some two feet from my bedroom door stood a figure-namely, Roger's. Watching me, as though I'd been standing there for the past hour. And in his hands was a sickening, mind-spinning curse I've come to know as déjà vu.  
  
Letters. Letters in his handwriting, from my pen, to Mimi's eyes. Forged letters; letters she discovered the truth behind. Yelled at me; which I'd expected. Kissed me... which I had not.  
  
Letters that had been stuffed so far away in my desk, never intended to see the light of day again... were now resting in the hands of the one person whose discovery of them would be more disastrous than hers.  
  
There was nothing wild or enraged about his eyes; perhaps that's what frightened me most. It was the first thing about this scene that differed from its twin, six months ago... aside from the fact that this was Roger. Not Mimi. No hidden love; only hate.  
  
He attempted to blink away the blankness in his eyes, but it was stuck. "What the-"  
  
"Don't," I begged quietly. "Just... please, don't."  
  
A flash of life stirred behind his eyes, and I felt myself jump. "Don't?" he echoed. "You write a fucking book's worth of letters in *my* handwriting to *my* girlfriend and you're telling me... don't?"  
  
He had a point.  
  
"Roger, she was depressed, she missed you, she..." Fuck it. This was impossible to justify in the amount of words and time I knew I had before he would officially blow up.  
  
He wasn't interrupting. He wasn't even reacting. I was starting to question whether I'd really stopped talking. Or whether I'd said a word at all. His shoulders finally slumped as the blankness returned to his eyes in full, focusing instead of the papers in his hands. "Did you ever tell her?"  
  
"She... found out."  
  
"What did she do?"  
  
"She yelled at me."  
  
Eyes never leaving the paper, the corners of his mouth rose and fell so rapidly it may have even been the lighting in the room. "That's it?"  
  
I swallowed. "Um... yeah." Yes. That was it. I wasn't about to tell him that she-  
  
But Roger knew. Roger always knew. Without even eye contact, he could sense the shuffling of feet, the nervous wringing of hands, even the swallowing of a lump in one's throat-any of the telltale signs of lying. He'd used more than enough of them in his own time to be able to detect them in others.  
  
His voice slowed, menacingly. "What did she do?" he repeated.  
  
"She just... started crying, so I hugged her, and..." And she went home and I went to bed alone, the end.  
  
"And what?"  
  
It was useless. No matter what I said from this point, unless it included some narration of physical contact, death, or other form of tragic shock... he'd know I was lying.  
  
"And..." Why was my mouth so dry? "She kissed me."  
  
Nothing. Not a blink, or a flinch, or even a breath. Now that was just insulting. It was quite an admission, after all... but apparently not impressive enough. I was going to have to embellish.  
  
"Actually," I spurted, "I kissed her. Okay? It's my fault. I started this, I stole your girlfriend, I'm the reason she's gone, it's all my doing. Can we move on now?"  
  
I kept watching his eyes for a fading of that blankness... but it suddenly occurred to me that I was watching the wrong thing. His eyes weren't the part of him that was reacting to this. The papers weren't in front of his face; they were in his hands. And his hands were shaking.  
  
All at once the papers were crunched into a tight ball, hurled across the room, and landed with a soft "thump" against the wall-almost a mocking lack of impact for the emotion coursing through the room.  
  
"I wrote her *every day*!" he bellowed at the wall.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Every fucking day, Mark!"  
  
"But she never-"  
  
"Because I never sent them!"  
  
"Well, that's not my fault!"  
  
He took two massive strides toward me. "You had no right to-"  
  
"I KNOW." There was no fury left to my tone; only exasperation. "I know," I echoed. "I've heard it from her, I don't need to hear it from you."  
  
"I-"  
  
"It's in the past, Roger!" I exploded. "All right? It was a mistake. I can't change it."  
  
"But it's *not* in the past, Mark, none of this is! It's all right here!"  
  
And, just to prove this hadn't been punctuated with nearly enough force... the phone rang.  
  
Our gazes lunged for it, but our bodies remained still. It was an insanely welcome distraction, strangely enough. Neither of us wanted to be fighting. Neither of us wanted to talk to anyone else, either though. We were very particular, weren't we? But nonetheless, the machine picked up and we waited, involuntarily, absent-mindedly, as we had done thousands of times before.  
  
"This message is for Mr. Cohen," stated the voice blaring through the cheap, scratchy speaker on the machine. "I'm calling on behalf of the East Side Healthcare Clinic. Your test results are ready..."  
  
She went on about appointments and locations and phone numbers, all information I'm quite positive neither of us heard, before-with a painfully loud, clumsy *click* of the phone-her words evaporated from the room.  
  
Well... the voice did. Her words were still very much here, and ringing, repeatedly, in my ears.  
  
A floorboard creaked insolently behind us, and the way we were both positioned in our respectively stagnant locations, the only place actually *behind* both of us was the front door. And, with identical jumps of shock, we spun around.  
  
Maureen stood in the doorframe, one foot in the living room, one in the hall, with a hand over her mouth.  
  
She'd heard it, too.  
  
I hadn't even wanted to hear that phone call myself, let alone with Roger, and now Maureen. Well, Jesus Christ, why not invite the whole fucking building and make a night out of it? Hey, everyone, Mark's test results are back; come enjoy an evening of music and celebration, BYOB.  
  
At least Roger could recognize the irritation of having just unknowingly shared an argument with an unforeseen audience. I watched as his wild eyes, glistening and dark with rage, dashed between the phone, Maureen, and finally me-before grabbing a jacket off the end of the couch, brushing roughly past her, and storming out.  
  
Storming out, as one likely knows, involves the loud, emphatic slamming of a door. It's practically a prerequisite. And seeing as Maureen had been directly between us and the hallway, I was ever-so-lucky that this particular door-slamming had sent her inside rather than out.  
  
In a matter of seconds, my company, comfort level, and heart rate had been dramatically altered... and not for the better.  
  
My body collapsed on the couch-it wasn't an action I'd consciously permitted; at this point, almost all movement was involuntary. Even as I pulled my feet up onto the couch, hugging my knees and a pillow to my chest, it was several languid, protracted moments before I realized how childlike I must have looked.  
  
Maureen parted with her purse, idly setting it on a chair, and slowly crossed the room. I'd never seen Maureen do anything 'slowly' in her life. Not since Mimi...  
  
I couldn't say it. 'Not since Mimi died.' The last word was always omitted, forcing her name to carry the weight of both the person and the person's fate. This ridiculous habit of fear still gave me chills. As if, by admitting the loss, it would somehow make the loss even... more so.  
  
But loss wasn't something with varying degrees of reality. Something-or someone-was either entirely lost, or entirely here.  
  
And right now, in this moment... I was entirely lost.  
  
I felt her hand cover mine. I had always adored her hands. They were soft and gentle-the only part of her to boast these traits. She'd always been a physically affectionate person-hugging, kissing, touching-she liked to be close to people. She couldn't read people through their eyes or through a lens, the way I could. And so she attempted to read them through contact. The way their hand would reciprocate her touch, or shy from it. It was good for me, when we dated; it forced me to learn how to allow myself to trust someone just that much... enough to let them read me through touch. It was, perhaps, one of the hardest but most valuable things I ever learned.  
  
And so, contrary to popular belief, my years with Maureen weren't all bad.  
  
She pried the pillow away to get closer to me, and I didn't protest. "Marky?"  
  
"What are you doing here?" I mumbled at the couch cushion.  
  
"I brought cookies," she offered softly, gesturing vaguely to the covered plate next to her purse.  
  
"You don't cook."  
  
"No, but the 5th Street bakery does." I almost smiled, and caught myself. Her hand moved to my arm, and she lowered her head, trying to find some-any- form of eye contact. "Are you okay?"  
  
I tried to take deep breaths, but they only came out in short, panicked gulps of air. "They're calling me in. They never call you in unless it's-"  
  
"Mark, that's not true-"  
  
"Unless it's bad news!" I finished stubbornly, far more loudly than I'd begun.  
  
She released my arm, sitting upright, melodramatic and offended. "You're acting like a baby."  
  
"Fuck off, Maureen."  
  
"Hey." She placed a finger under my chin, softly leading my gaze to hers. "I'll come with you tomorrow."  
  
"No."  
  
"Come on, Mark."  
  
"NO."  
  
There was silence, then, which could only mean one of two things-she was giving me the Death Glare, or she was crying. The awful, soundless tears that were worse than any of her tantrums. I looked up, and wasn't surprised to find it was the latter.  
  
She blinked back a pool of tears, but instead they simply splashed down her cheeks. "I miss her."  
  
Every natural instinct told me I had no strength for this; that the very idea of comforting her was more energy than I would have for weeks to come. But somehow, my thoughts ran deeper, and I knew this was my chance to return what she'd taught me, about reading people without a lens. And on that note, I shoved the pillows aside and pulled her into my arms.  
  
Her head buried itself in my chest, remaining there long after the tears had dwindled. "Please," she finally whispered. "Let me be there tomorrow."  
  
I shook my head. "I have to do this alone."  
  
I knew she didn't fully understand why isolation would be more appealing to me than the support of a friend, but I admired her for her acceptance. For respecting me enough to know it was what I needed. She gave a final squeeze to my hand, a soft, comforting brush against my lips, and a hole in the plastic cover of my cookie plate, where she dug in to snatch one for herself before closing the door behind her. [A/N: Not a WORD about Matt and Cookie Jar, folks. :P]  
  
It would have been so much easier if the rest of the world were holding their breath with me that next morning. If the waiting room had been cold and uninviting, with plain white walls and plastic models of intestines on the magazine tables. But it wasn't. It was warm and comforting with a friendly staff and I hated it. I left my chair twice and marched to the door, reasoning that if I never found out, it would never really be true.  
  
My intellectual capacity was somewhat more advanced than this, however, and finally I could no longer bear forcing myself to support this reasoning, and I collapsed, defeated, in my chair.  
  
The only break I got was the fact that it was raining. And even that, at a misty drizzle, was only half-hearted.  
  
A scant ten minutes after my arrival, they called for me. It was too soon. You were supposed to wait two hours, minimum, at these places. It was like, a law. A tacit, informally accepted law, at any rate. A nurse appeared in the waiting room doorway-one of those doors specifically built for clinics, I suppose. They opened every minute or so, but you could never see inside them, no matter where you were sitting. It was just a mass of mysterious hallways or white-walled rooms. I always wondered what secrets they were hiding back there.  
  
Today, I would find out.  
  
"Mr. Cohen?"  
  
I rose from my seat, numbly, hands stuffed in my pockets, and followed the nurse's silent footsteps into the cold, white room I'd been longing for since I got here.  
  
She stared at me. What, no folders to look over? No paperwork to fill out? "Mr. Cohen... I know this is very--"  
  
"Please don't," I interrupted, surprising myself. "Just tell me."  
  
Her lips drew into a tight line, but finally softened as I suspected my gaze grew increasingly more pitiful. Slowly, she nodded, hugging her clipboard to her chest, and took a deep breath. For all this mental preparation, I'd have thought her voice would have at least had strength enough to rise above a whisper.  
  
But I was wrong.  
  
"You've tested positive for HIV. ...I'm sorry." 


	17. 

A/N: 12-04-02: Yes. It's been a long time. Apologies. Please read the last chapter (or the entire story) to refresh your memories. Even I had to do that. And I fucking WROTE it. At any rate, I think I've lost my touch for this story. It's been too long, and I've forgotten the state of mind I used to be in when I'd write it. So now it feels foreign. At any rate, hope it isn't too disappointing.  
  
Only an epilogue left. Please nag me if you would like to see it sometime in the twenty-first century.  
  
And yeah, I love how I originally said the clinic was on W. 29th, and now I've been calling it the East Side Healthcare Clinic for the past two chapters. Ignore that.  
  
Disclaimer: I own no one except my lavish supply of handmaidens who, sadly, do not make an appearance here.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
17. [R]  
  
I just wish he'd asked me why.  
  
For months, I'd been asking myself why I'd written all those letters to her while I was gone, and never sent even one of them. Asking myself never seemed to do much good. It didn't keep me from smack, it didn't keep me from leaving New York. But when *he* asked me why I did something... somehow, it made everything clear.  
  
I wonder if that's reversible?  
  
I knew he questioned himself nonstop. He always had. Would his answers ever be different if I were the one asking?  
  
I'd probably never know. I can't remember the last time I asked him why. Why he had hid behind that camera, why he didn't speak up when he knew I was reading his mind anyway, why he had to fall in love with the one woman I was meant to be with...  
  
Not that it mattered now.  
  
Unfortunately, I wasn't one of those people who could wander aimlessly and still end up in the one place fate had intended me to be. If I didn't have some vague conception of where I was going, I would end up in some dark basement with screaming music, old acquaintances, and white powder.  
  
And so, I went to see her.  
  
She'd wanted to be buried next to Angel-that's all I knew. I hadn't asked them anything about the funeral, and no one had volunteered any information. I assumed they didn't want to tell me, and they assumed, considering I wasn't there, that I didn't want to know. We were probably both right.  
  
The stone above the ground looked like any other, except it had her name written across it. Hers. Instead of... anyone else's. It didn't belong there. It belonged on her driver's license, which expired two years ago, and was a fake she'd had done at some novelty shop in the city. It belonged on the door to her dressing room at work, with little hearts, stars, and post-it notes surrounding it. It belonged on the envelopes of all the letters I wrote her in Santa Fe, and never sent.  
  
Not here. Not on a stone in the ground.  
  
I looked at the pile of crumpled letters in my hands, squashed together with a fat rubber band. I'd kept them in my car in Santa Fe. I'd always put them in the front seat with me on my way to the post office, and decide against it once I got there. Before long, a nice pile had begun to develop. I'd never touched them since. Not until now.  
  
"This never would have happened..."  
  
And she wasn't here. She couldn't hear me. Honestly, which was more pathetic? The fact that I thought, somehow, she could... or the fact that talking to her was so pitifully therapeutic? I sat down in the grass beside her, placing the pile of letters next to a fresh red rose that had obviously been left by someone more desperate than I was at proving their sentiment.  
  
"If only I'd sent these, he wouldn't have forged them like the ass that he tends to be. You wouldn't have kissed him, none of this would have happened, and you'd still be here now."  
  
It sounded ridiculously, impossibly simple that way.  
  
If only life could be run on the promise, rather than the prospect, of 'if only's'.  
  
I inched closer, feeling the soft, warm ground with my hands-as though it held some distant sense of life-and felt my eyes begin to burn with tears.  
  
"I'm sorry," I choked. "I'm sorry I left and I'm sorry I came back and I'm sorry you lost the man you loved and I..."  
  
The impending thoughts shocked, and embarrassed, me. But, as no one could hear, I allowed them to take the more tangible form of words.  
  
"...And I'm sorry he lost you."  
  
It felt wrong. I shouldn't be sorry at all. Not for him.  
  
But somehow, I couldn't help but ache for anyone who felt the pain of her loss as much as I did.  
  
"I-I don't hate him," I spurted quickly. "I can't blame anyone for falling in love with you. And I know he took care of you. It's just so unfair, because I thought I'd always be that person. The one who looked out for you. But... he did it where I failed."  
  
Crazy, really, how saying something out loud that I'd known to be true for so long could make my hands tremble.  
  
I never left that patch of grass all night. I never closed my eyes. I sat with my letters and my lost love and I talked to a gray stone until the first bird signaled morning... at which point I fell asleep.  
  
The rain woke me up, hours later. Hours which felt to have been condensed to perhaps five or ten minutes, I noted in my exhaustion. The letters were getting soaked, beginning to melt into each other in a wet, wrinkled mess of paper and ink and stamps. I quickly snatched them up, putting them back in my jacket pocket, and pulled myself to my feet.  
  
But I just couldn't make myself leave her.  
  
"What do I *do*, Mimi?" I demanded of the stone, my voice barely rising above the downpour of rain. "I know he took care of you, but you're gone, and... and..."  
  
And that's when it hit me.  
  
It was my turn to take care of *him*.  
  
The loft greeted me with emptiness when I came home, breathless and soaking wet and suddenly, painfully alone. I don't know why I expected him to be there. He had test results to pick up. He was at the clinic-he had more courage than I expected. That part was real, Roger, if you remember correctly. The whole Mark-possibly-being-positive thing-that wasn't a dream. No more than was her death.  
  
It was real. So unfairly, fucking real.  
  
My tires screeched through the grimy wet streets of the East Village, and as I rounded the corner onto 29th, it was easy to believe I was just coming to pick up my AZT for the month, as I had done for years.  
  
Actually, it wasn't that easy. I never picked it up; I never remembered. Mark had always done that.  
  
Inside, the woman at the front desk offered me a small smile, which vanished as I crossed the space between the door and her desk, paying little attention to the fact that my footprints alone were completely drenching their carpet.  
  
"May I... help you?"  
  
"Someone-came in here," I stammered, instantly realizing the futility of this statement. "He was wearing a..." All right, how the fuck was I supposed to know what he was wearing? "He has blonde hair and blue eyes and glasses and I know he's here so just... let me see him."  
  
Making demands before introducing yourself. Way to win her over, Roger.  
  
"You mean Mr. Cohen?"  
  
"Yeah. Mark. He-"  
  
"He left over an hour ago."  
  
My eyes narrowed, bewildered. "His appointment *was* an hour ago."  
  
"Well, he didn't stay long."  
  
God damn it, that could translate to anything.  
  
Carefully, I leaned over the desk, my voice insultingly slow and enunciated. "What do you mean, he didn't stay long?"  
  
"He got called to the back, and... a minute after, he was storming out the door."  
  
Two and half seconds later, so was I.  
  
My thoughts raced wildly as I drove home, but it wasn't until I parked in front of the loft that I was able to grab one thought, look at it, and fully take it in. And it wasn't until I did this that I realized all my thoughts were nothing more than variations on the same one.  
  
He was positive. Mark had HIV. My best friend was going to end up dying of AIDS, just like me.  
  
Any way I admitted it, I still felt sick to my stomach.  
  
Irony had always sent me into a rage, especially when it was at my expense. But in this moment, I couldn't fight away the sick truth of our fates. Both of us, just in our twenties, being served death sentences by the women we'd fallen so desperately, intensely in love with.  
  
The women who, conveniently enough, had left us to suffer this alone.  
  
Not surprisingly, I returned to find the loft still empty. This was quickly becoming a new pattern for me. Ordinarily, when I returned from one of my raging tantrums, he'd be seated in the exact same spot as he'd been when I left him. Waiting for my return. He was always waiting for me. I never had to wait for him, because he was always there.  
  
How fucking spoiled I'd gotten.  
  
Somehow, miraculously, distraction was strong enough to avert my eyes to the phone, where an insignificant red light blinked, over and over, as though counting down to the explosion of a time bomb.  
  
At least he'd called.  
  
I lunged for the receiver, knocking it off the hook as I whacked random buttons, luckily managing to punch 'play' in my frenzy.  
  
"Twelve thirty-six p.m.," groaned the recording.  
  
Holy fuck. Only three minutes ago.  
  
"This is the East Side Healthcare Clinic with an urgent message for Mr. Mark Cohen."  
  
Fabulous. A follow-up phone call. How fucking discreet. What, did he forget his "So You're HIV+--Now What?" pamphlet?  
  
"Mr. Cohen, your test results at our lab were regrettably mixed up with a Michael Cohen. The results you were given today were his, and entirely inaccurate."  
  
I froze.  
  
"Your test came out negative, Mark. Congratulations."  
  
I had barely heard past the opening sentence. The message wasn't what paralyzed me. I still heard it, of course, in the back of my mind. But I was frozen because of something else. Something quieter. Something tangible, and far more terrifying, than a phone call.  
  
A small yellow piece of paper, folded once in a messy half and placed face- down on the kitchen table.  
  
I wonder if he remembered.  
  
If he did, this was a sick joke. If he didn't... God, how could he not?  
  
Everyone remembered. Even the ones who weren't there.  
  
The day we came home and found the yellow piece of paper on the kitchen table before someone, no one remembers who, burst into the bathroom and found her... her body crumpled in a heap and drenched in a pool of blood.  
  
This wasn't fucking funny, Mark.  
  
I stood in front of the paper, above it, towering menacingly over the kitchen table as though if I appeared threatening enough, I just might be able to alter the words printed inside.  
  
All I remember about April is... we could have saved her. If we'd thought to look in the bathroom sooner instead of standing over the freshly read note for ten minutes, in shock...  
  
We could have saved her.  
  
My fingers crushed around it, snatching it from the table and recklessly whipping it open.  
  
'Roger,  
  
I have AIDS. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.  
  
Love, Mark'  
  
It was cryptic. It was ambiguous. Probably intentionally so. But it was Mark. And that kept it from really being cryptic or ambiguous at all.  
  
I knew him. He knew I knew him. He knew he'd said all he needed to in that note.  
  
His penmanship sent a chill down my spine. It was so similar to mine now- likely from the days and days of poring over my handwritten songs, taking in my voice as his own and translating it to paper.  
  
It scared the shit out of me.  
  
But not enough to keep me planted there in a frozen stupor.  
  
I drove-everywhere. Halfway to Maureen's and back, wondering if I'd lost my mind in the process. Chanting the question over and over, 'If I were Mark, what would be my venue of choice for suicide?', nearly drove me into a telephone pole three times, taxis twice, and pedestrians more times than I could remember even *seeing* pedestrians.  
  
What if he wasn't trying to be creative? What if he wasn't trying to hide?  
  
What if he... wanted to be found?  
  
What if the yellow half-piece of paper was only the beginning of his reenactment?  
  
And so, for the next thirty seconds, I was given relief from the question of location, which had begun to chant itself independently of my will. Instead, my focus now lay on the image of him... the same way we'd found her...  
  
And once again, too late.  
  
It wouldn't happen. Not this time. Not today.  
  
I found him on the sidewalk by the cemetery.  
  
Slamming the gears into reverse, I backed up to him as close as I could get, but he was already inside the gate, sloshing through the rain and the already soaked grass, his coat stretched tightly around him.  
  
Not bothering even to turn off the engine, I leapt from the car.  
  
"Mark!"  
  
Good one, Roger. That's bound to send him running into your arms.  
  
It didn't take me long to catch up to him, but gathering the courage to actually *do* something about this new lack of distance between us... that was another effort entirely.  
  
"Mark-" I was breathless now, and grabbed his arm, spinning him around until I could almost see his eyes beneath the sheets of rain.  
  
"Go," he instructed firmly, his tired, pained voice straining to slice through the rain and be heard, somehow. "Go home."  
  
I shrugged, unfazed. "No. I'm not letting you do this."  
  
"It's not exactly in your control, Roger."  
  
"FUCK this!" I screamed, releasing his jacket, somehow confident that he wasn't about to take off on me. "I lost her, I'm not going to lose you too!"  
  
"Well," he laughed-actually laughed. "How touching." He turned from me and continued up the path.  
  
Again, I grabbed his sleeve. "Mark-"  
  
"NO!" How quickly laughter fades. "No, you've fucked up everything in our lives and I'm not letting you take this away from me too"  
  
"There's nothing to take away! I'm trying to keep us *both* from losing something."  
  
He shook his head, not hearing me at all. "You hate me. You think I'm to blame-"  
  
"No, I-"  
  
"But I loved her. And I know she loved me. And-"  
  
"I fucking know that!"  
  
His eyes sliced through to mine, past the rain, completely puzzled. "What?"  
  
"I know she was in love with you! And I know you took care of her and I know she's gone because of me, because I left her, I left both of you. It's my fault. And we've lost her, but goddammit, Mark, we haven't lost each other. Not yet."  
  
I stopped, trying to swallow, and finding my throat dry despite the torrents of water beating down on us.  
  
I shook my head, my arms dropping to my side. "She wouldn't want this, Mark."  
  
He shook his head quickly in agreement, like a child being taught the dangers of crossing the road without a grownup. His eyes wide, blurred by rain but glistened by tears, I could see his entire small frame trembling.  
  
"She's gone."  
  
Slowly, I nodded. "But we're not."  
  
I don't know how it happened, going from stiff, freezing figures standing in the grass, staring at each other-to heaps on the ground, leaning against a gate and crying in each other's arms. I could count on one hand-maybe even one finger-the number of times we'd found ourselves this close, this desperate... this trusting. Last time being, of course, the ten seconds prior to the moment he told me he was the father of Mimi's unborn child.  
  
Only this time, he didn't shove me away.  
  
Just when I thought the hug was developing a serious potential to strangle us both, I extracted myself from his embrace, offering a random piece of conversation to break the silence.  
  
"You're not positive."  
  
"What?"  
  
"They mixed up your results with someone else."  
  
His eyes darted everywhere in confusion, in shock. "But why-why didn't you tell me..."  
  
"I didn't want that to be the reason you decided not to go through with it."  
  
The corners of his mouth danced, lifting slightly upward before he shook his head-not a gesture of great communication, but a mere expression of wonder. And for the first time in over eight months, I saw the boy I'd discovered on a sidewalk six years ago, filming a butterfly with a broken wing.  
  
Strange, that it took me to this point to realize that wasn't the only broken butterfly he would film in his lifetime.  
  
But, unlike that first one... we would heal.  
  
He blinked. Smiled. Dropped a hand on my arm. "I want to go home."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
[epilogue next. here's the pic that inspired this last chapter: http://www.geocities.com/bohogirls/pictures/obc/adamanthony.jpg so... yeah. :)] 


	18. Epilogue

A/N: 12-8-02: It's over. I... can't fucking believe it. I finished it. Yay me. :) Now that I've finally gotten back into writing it... well, damn. *rolls eyes* :P  
  
Please go back and re-read chapter one, or at least the beginning of it, to appreciate my self-plagiarism here. (Shut up. It can be a wonderful literary technique. ;) And yeah. Stole a tiny little line from Matt Caplan.  
  
My extensive gratitude to: Becca, for her love, support, and endless inspiration. Dulcey, for cliffhangers and for being my best friend at the times I don't deserve one. Elyse, for the Sherie!Love, her priceless friendship, and Maggie!EAL.  
  
Also many, many thanks to Liss, Sandy, Christina, et al. You know who you are.  
  
This is for JL.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Epilogue. [M]  
  
[Two months later.]  
  
The sun shone off the back of the guitar as its end stuck up in the back seat, continually blocking my rear view. It didn't matter, though. Assuming I didn't crash, the look on his face would be completely worth it.  
  
Even if I did crash... what the fuck; it's the thought that counts.  
  
It was nice actually having a job, I decided-for moments like these, when I could take a paycheck and walk into a guitar shop and know I was buying my best friend the greatest birthday present he could ask for.  
  
Mimi and I had seen it in the window every time we walked to the ice cream shop on 14th on Sunday nights. And every time she'd stop, and look at it, and wistfully note how much Roger would love it.  
  
And so, as much as my gift was for him... it was for her, too.  
  
"Mark!" Maureen was bounding down the stairs of the loft the moment I'd parked the car, freshly dyed blonde hair falling across her shoulders. "Lemme see, lemme see!"  
  
I lifted the guitar case from the back seat, propping it up next to the car. "Nice, huh?" I offered teasingly.  
  
She rolled her eyes. "Open it, dammit."  
  
"Roger can open it, it's *his* birthday," I reminded her. "If you're a good girl he might let you play with it later."  
  
She stuck her tongue out at me for an instant, before anxiously following me up the stairs but not bothering to help with the rather inconveniently shaped case.  
  
"Is Roger here yet?" I asked.  
  
"Yeah. Joanne has him locked in his room."  
  
I quirked an eyebrow. "Does she, now?"  
  
"Oh shut up!"  
  
We finally reached the top of the stairs, at which point I swung the door open and dumped the case inside. Collins and Benny were hovered over the cake, meticulously attempting to flip the large plastic '6' upside down into a '9'. Maureen hung onto my arm, bouncing excitedly, and Joanne stood planted firmly in front of Roger's bedroom door, the very picture of authority.  
  
I gave her a nod, and she stepped aside.  
  
"All right, Roge," I called. "Come out."  
  
"But not in *that* way!" chirped Maureen.  
  
His figure appeared in the doorway, immediately catching sight of the guitar case. At the last minute, I'd quickly accented the case with a giant red bow, which Maureen promptly proclaimed too girly and removed it, placing it atop my head instead.  
  
Roger blinked. "Oh my God."  
  
I stepped forward. "Now, it's... not exactly like your old one, but..." He was on the floor beside the case in an instant, gently laying it on its side and flipping open the top. "Yeah, well... happy birthday," I concluded.  
  
"Oh my God," he echoed.  
  
Maureen plopped down beside him. "Isn't it fabulous? Marky got it."  
  
He looked up at me, shaking his head. "You didn't."  
  
"I did."  
  
"You shouldn't have, Mark."  
  
I shrugged, fighting a grin. "You like it?"  
  
His wide eyes turned back to the instrument, lightly running his fingers over the strings. "It's... perfect."  
  
Collins gave a final adjustment to the '6' and plopped into a chair. "Feel up to playing something for us?"  
  
"Um..." Roger nodded, absent-mindedly, before looking up at me and smiling. "Yeah. Later."  
  
I smiled back.  
  
Later, as it turned out, ended up being hours after everyone left, as the two of us sat around the loft, talking, going through the final case of beer, and finishing what tiny bit of cake was left after Maureen had finished with it. And out of nowhere, he sat down on the floor next to his new guitar, and freed it from the case's velvet lining.  
  
I hadn't seen him pick up a guitar in close to a year. It was clear, as he lifted the instrument into his arms, that it wasn't exactly the one he'd held for the last six years. But as the single experimental strum of a chord lifted into the air... I knew that he hadn't lost it. That I hadn't lost *him*. That I would still wake up on Saturday mornings to hear him in the living room next to a class of Coke (which he'd finally accidentally knock over around eleven a.m.), alternately scribbling on paper, picking out melodies, and cursing at his self-proclaimed lack of talent.  
  
But of course I knew better. I saw the brilliance when he couldn't. I knew someday he would be up on stage with that guitar, in front of hundreds or thousands of people. Because though not every devastating end brings a new beginning, you occasionally find one that does. Because I knew, when it came down to it, our lives were not vastly different from that guitar. Sometimes our strings would break, sometimes we'd be out of tune... but in the end, we had each other. Because we were more than a guitar.  
  
More than just pieces of wood.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
~end~ 


End file.
